The month before Apple revealed its “intelligent assistant,” Siri, Amazon was quietly buying out a company whose software performs voice-to-text actions like transcribing voicemails, whatever those are. In fact, its only user-facing product did just that, and its users received notice last month that the service would soon be discontinued.

CLT Blog, a local news source in Yap’s hometown, Charlotte, noted the change and discovered an SEC filing that, while it didn’t spell much out explicitly, did show that the merger documents were on file here in Seattle, in South Lake Union, in a building owned by Amazon.

The company was apparently doing well and the Yap Voicemail app was most likely the tip of the iceberg, an application of more important IP under development since 2006. They received a $6.5 million Series A round in 2008, led by SunBridge Partners there in Charlotte, but no reports exist at the moment that can accurately place the value of the company.

With a few million in R&D funds, they certainly were doing more than squashing bugs in their transcription app. Improving the underlying voice-recognition engine and perhaps expanding its natural language capabilities would be a better use of the funds. But why would Amazon pick them up now?

Because now Amazon is in the home. Where previously you interacted with Amazon through a PC interface, browser or otherwise, or at most an on-Kindle store, now you have the Fire, which sports a rich interface and media-consumption focus. What would be more natural than talking to your tablet? How about virtual shopping assistant?

Unfortunately, the Fire doesn’t actually have a microphone. Every phone running the Kindle app does, however, and it’s possible we’ll see a precursor to the full voice functionality in that ecosystem. We’ll follow up with the financial details as soon as they’re available. You can read the SEC filing here (PDF).

A reader tells us Yap Voicemail, a mobile voicemail transcription app for iPhone and Android phones, will soon be no more.

Indeed, a message on the Yap Voicemail product page informs users that the service, which converts voicemails into text, thus making it easier to access, search and respond to voicemail messages from a mobile device, will be discontinued on October 20, 2011.

Yap has published a FAQ on the topic, letting AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon users know how to restore the original voicemail service on their phones.

Yap Voicemail users can transfer their voicemail messages one by one by emailing themselves copies, and after the 20th of October, callers will receive a recorded message saying that the person they’re trying to reach no longer has voicemail enabled.

Yap did not say why it is ceasing its Voicemail operations. Similar services are aplenty: check out Google Voice, YouMail, GotVoice, VoiceCloud, VoxSciences and PhoneTag for alternatives.

Yap Voicemail has been added to the TechCrunch deadpool.

Listening to voicemails is a huge waste of time. That’s why apps that transcribe your voicemail to text are a godsend. The new Yap Voicemail app is now available for the iPhone. You route your voicemails through Yap, which launched a few years ago at TechCrunch 40 as a speech-to-SMS app. It transcribes them for you using only speech-to-text technology (no humans), which allows it to offer the service for free (with ads at the bottom).

The transcriptions are not perfect—it mistook “Leena” for “Nina” and “drafts” for “trust” in one message, but Yap gets enough of the words right to figure out what the message is about. And you can always play the message in the app to listen to exactly what was said. Every time you get a message, a notification pops up with the name of the caller and the beginning of the message. Since it is completely automated, the message appears almost immediately after it is left on your voicemail, just like a text message. You can respond via email, SMS, or a phone call right from the app.

Here is one typical message that Yap transcribed for me today from a PR person:

I am sorry to leave this message. I know you probably hate voice mail but this one is important. Otherwise, I wouldn’t leave it to get to the point. I know you’re probably getting inundated with pitches around Google TV from all the partners in obviously Google but hoping that there’s a way to include . . .

You get the idea. I saved 42 seconds not having to listen to that. Thank you, Yap!

Yap is not first to this market. The ability to read your voicemails is one of the killer features of Google Voice, for instance. While the official Google Voice app is not available on the iPhone, it is expected to be approved shortly. And third-party Google Voice apps are already available. Note that Google Voice offers other features besides voicemail-to-text transcriptions, but with Yap you can keep your own phone number.

And then there’s Ribbit Mobile, which does pretty much the exact same thing as Yap and is an excellent app, but won’t be free after its beta period. Ribbit’s voicemail transcription is powered by PhoneTag, which augments its speech-to-text engine with human proofreaders and claims to be the most accurate of all the services. I’ve only tried the Yap iPhone app for a day and received a half dozen messages, so I can’t really tell which one is more accurate. But it seems to be at least as good as Google Voice, maybe better. The set-up is real easy, and it’s free. Definitely worth a try.

Computer voice-to-text technology has come a long way, and every time it gets better, new applications open up. It is still not 100 percent accurate. Hell, it’s not even 90 percent accurate. But it is accurate enough for automated voicemail transcription services to become increasingly available and good enough not to have to listen through 15 voicemails to get the gist of what they are about.  Of course, voicemails are often translated incorrectly, sometimes to comic effect.

In a study comparing the accuracy of four different voice-to-text technologies (Google Voice, Preview in Microsoft Exchange, Ditech’s PhoneTag, and Yap) the one which came out on top was PhoneTag, which is now part of Ditech Networks. PhoneTag showed an 86 percent accuracy rate in translating 500 spoken messages into text. Google Voice was only able to achieve an 82 percent accuracy in its voice-to-text translations.  The study only evaluated purely automated voice-to-text systems.  Here’s how all four fared:

Automated Voice-to-Text Accuracy:

• PhoneTag: 86%
• Microsoft: 84%
• Google: 82%>
• Yap: 78%

The study was commissioned by Ditech and carried out by William Meisel of TMA Associates. You can read his methodology in the document embedded below. Of course, a study commissioned by Google might show Google Voice coming out on top  But what I find more interesting is that 86 percent accuracy is considered something to boast about.  Ditech’s Chief Strategy Officer, Jamie Siminoff (who founded the company behind PhoneTag, Simulscribe) points out that each percentage point gain in accuracy is a big deal and that his goal is to get to 90 percent accuracy.  To get beyond that, it si still necessary to use humans to clean up the automated translations.

PhoneTag offers both fully-automated and human-assisted transcription.  One service which uses PhoneTag is Ribbit Mobile, which I’ve been using with the human-assisted transcription option turned on.  I also use Google Voice on another phone.  I’ve certainly noticed that the human-assisted transcriptions are incredibly accurate.  It can even make sense of my three-year-old son’s messages:

Hi, daddy. Hello. We’re calling you from the kitchen. We just made, what we had just made, a banana (??). Bye. Bye.’

I turned off the human-assisted option and tested some purely automated transcriptions today, so I could compare it more fairly to Google Voice.  Some messages were pretty much the same, for others the accuracy went way down, but I really couldn’t say that PhoneTag was noticeably better than Gogle Voice.  But I do notice the difference when I have the human-assisted option turned on. So while 86 percent accuracy might be something to crow about, adding human translators to the mix is still by far the best way to go.

Accuracy of Voicemail-To-text Services

When I first started out in the real world in the mid-nineties voicemail was an important productivity tool. I remember people talking about the pros and cons of various enterprise voicemail systems – which had the best forwarding and group messaging, which allowed for archiving, and how many messages could be stored and for how long. Even though email was around, people were still unsure how to use it. Letters went on letterhead and were formal. Voicemail was informal and common. Email etiquette was still being developed. It was good for mass-forwarding jokes and moving Word, Excel, and Powerpoint files around, but it took a while for email to take over as older generations moved out of the workplace or got with the program.

But now an increasing number of people are just plain avoiding voicemail (for my impromptu and unscientific survey, see the comments here, which are predominantly anti-voicemail). It takes much longer to listen to a message than read it. And voicemail is usually outside of our typical workflow, making it hard to forward or reply to easily.

Typical voicemail messages today include things like “Please don’t leave me a voicemail, I rarely listen to them. Please just email me at xxxx@xxxx.com” Many people don’t bother setting up their voicemail accounts at all. Then there’s my favorite method, the one I use personally – let the message box get full and then don’t empty it. Caller ID still tells me who called, and I can simply call them back.

How many times have you called someone back and said “I saw that you called but didn’t listen to the voicemail yet, Is it anything urgent?”

Senders often feel guilty for leaving voicemails, too. And to make sure you get the message, quite often people will follow up with a text message – “Just left you a VM, it’s important” – just so you know it’s there.

There are startups that are trying to make voicemail more useful. Pinger, GrandCentral and YouMail are among them. The iPhone’s visual voicemail feature helps clean up the clutter, too. But at the end of the day you still need to take time to listen to those voicemails, and that usually comes after other equally urgent but less disruptive tasks.

The services that really make voicemail more usable are those that convert voicemail into text and then send it to you via email or SMS (Spinvox, PhoneTag Yap and Jott, for example).

More mobile carriers are offering text conversion for a monthly or per-message fee. It’s my guess this will become more and more common. Voice is here to stay as a data input method, but listening to messages will certainly become an increasing luxury, to be reserved for loved ones or those messages that aren’t transcribed properly (or you need to hear it for tone or emotion).

For now most people don’t have voicemail transcription services. So think before you voicemail, more and more people just find it annoying.

Yap, a company that translates voice into SMS text messages, has raised $6.5 million in a Series A funding round led by SunBridge Partners. Also participating in the round were Harbert Management Corportaion and Pittco Management.

The site, which was a member of TechCrunch40, makes texting easier by using voice recognition software to transcribe spoken messages to text. The service runs on a small application installed on the phone, which captures the spoken message and uploads to Yap’s servers, which (hopefully) returns the spoken phrase. Yap aims to help cut down on the number of people who “text and drive”, by reducing the amount of time they’ll need to fumble with their phone. Of course, you’ll still need to look at the phone to read a response to your text message, so this isn’t totally solving the problem.

As part of the deal SunBridge and Harbert Management Corporation will add partners to Yap’s Board of Directors.

Cubic Telecom

Cubic Telecom is creating a global Mobile Virtual Network (MVNo). The company aims to drastically reduce international calling rates by lowering mobile roaming and call charges. Founder Pat Phelan a well known communications blogger “wants a world in which anyone can pick up their mobile phone wherever they are and call anyone in any country for as long as they like without worrying about the price.”

Nice start: global roaming rates suck: tell me about it!

Product launch is today “Maxroam,” allows you to add numbers to the sim. Esssentially calls are routed from one number in each place. Every call on the mobile becomes a local call.

This is a brilliant idea, didn’t mention the price though but said it was cheap. I want

Yap

Yap provides voice-to-text translation services for mobile phones. Users can say anything they like and Yap will send a text copy to anyone of their contacts. The service is completely automated so you won’t have intermediary Yap employees listening to your messages, typing them and then sending them out. They also have a text messaging application call Yap9 that allows you to keep in touch with friends, family, and co-workers. Users can also use the application to instantly query mobile web services just by talking. They can search Google, Wikipedia, Yahoo, and YouTube, or interact with Facebook without using their phones’ miniature keyboards. GotVoice, Spinvox, and CallWave also offer speech to text.

Presentation problems: no audio on the video, but the music as they went on stage was an interesting touch: Singing in the Rain.

Mic pics up a heartbeat: classic.

Jason Calacanis jumps in to help with the presentation tech issues…deferring to next presentation. We’ll revisit Yap later.

Ceedo

Ceedo Technologies is a virtualization software company headquartered in Israel. Its patent pending approach to virtualizing the Windows’ desktop environment enables users to carry their PC-based work environment on portable devices such as USB flash drives, pocket hard drives, network drives and even mobile phones. Ceedo works well with the mobile device market. This is because it does not virtualize operating systems, which lets it load and operate more quickly while taking less drive space. Ceedo Mobile technology lets users connect their favorite mobile device to a PC without requiring installation or configuration.

Strong start to presentation: “self contained device” with broad user interface. Any PC can be turned into a terminal for any device.

Nice looking interface. Windows though, no mention of a Mac client.

Uses Picasa to blog, but posts via mobile phone, essentially Ceedo is offering the interface.

Virtualization space is secure: you can access the portable devices without leaving a trace on the PC. Portability is the key…I’m getting this more now.

Fairly cool idea: the ability to plugin a portable device and use the PC as essentially a dumb terminal, not sure how big the market will be for it but that doesn’t take away from the concept.

Yap Mk 2

Yap back on stage, see our notes above.

Presentation video shows the voice to text demonstration. Voice recognition engine works well, question is will SMS TXTing kiddies rather use voice? I would, but then again I suck at txting.

Yap also provides responses to things like Starbucks Coffee, flight arrivals at SFO. Full interface with Yap and mobile browser and other phone parts. Links into Amazon.

Loudtalks

Loudtalks is a free downloadable push-to-talk messaging application for nearly any phone. It supports real time private or group voice communication in the walkie talkie style. Loudtalks is based on the peer-to-peer architecture and capable to work behind most firewalls and NATs. The software is lightweight (installer is less than 1 Mb) and unobtrusive. Normally it runs in the background and can be activated with hotkey without switching the focus or popping up the application window. The advantages of Loudtalks over existing messaging systems include speed, asynchronous style and voice messaging.

Russian startup, lightweight client.

Messaging can be stored and played back.

Trutap

Trutap is a mobile social-networking application that enables users to stay connected with offline and online friends regardless of where they are in the world. The application also claims to work with all social networks, IM clients, network carriers and mobile phone devices. Trutap is accessible through a downloadable mobile application and their web browser experience synchronizes all Trutap messages, conversations and contacts. The application lets users communicate with individuals or groups via text, picture and instant messaging. The service also enables users to link to their social networks, upload pictures and update their blogs. Aka-Aki, Imity, MobiLuck, Britekite, and Loopt are some of the other mobile social networks.

Strong start: for once using a PowerPoint presentation is a good option over audio/ video…it just works

A slide shows there is no IM in Europe and China…WTF?

Trutap application showing: nice looking product, seems usable, presuming it’s a java app.

Jabber style IM client, links into major network.

Beta program opens today. API coming soon.

The Trutap developers are on stage signing a song…great stuff, clever way to break through the noise. Congrats to Trutap, good presentation.

Expert Panel: Ryan Block Chris Anderson, Marc Andreessen, Om Malik, and Marissa Mayer

Jason Calacanis said that the panel was too nice last time, and Om’s reputation is ruined

Om starts: presentations were “interesting”…laughter in the room. First question to Cubic from Om: how big could the business. Cubic: huge, anyone who travels, global roaming rates are absurd. $100 million business. Calls are made on the phone, not the PC.

Ryan Block asks about Sim cards. Not a BYO number product. Discussion continues about number forwarding, Om thinks most people dont know how to forward a phone.

Marc Andreessen asks about distribution…again (by his own admission though). Various turns, obviously everyone has a distribution model.

Om to Ceedo: how will you work when so many others have tried. Ceedo: we work with standard apps, simple to use, and cross platform…as long as it’s a flavor of Windows.

Talk about phones…Jason makes fun of Apple, trying to get something out of Marissa Meyer about the Google phone. MM changes topic as quickly as she can and says she likes Yap and Ceedo.

Ryan asks Trutap about a Nokia product that competes. Trutap says that they are already in discussion with handset makers.

Om: Trutap most likely acquired, Cubic is an outside chance of being around in 5 years, rest he is “reserving judgement”

Overall: Nick likes Yap due to the contextual tie in to other services. Cubic Telecom for me, if only because I’m paying $2.50 a minute to make a call if I use my mobile while I’m here for TC40 so it had the most personal resonance. The panel seemed to like Ceedo.