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I have always felt that voicemail was one of the most archaic of modern communications media.  Like fax machines, voice mail systems seem stuck in an earlier era, with arcane controls for a maze of menus and features.  In fact, I was long loath to trust voice mail systems at all, instead just asking people to call my other numbers or email me.

With this in mind, I was impressed by Apple's reinvention of voice mail with the iPhone.  Although the Visual Voicemail feature is widely recognized as referring to the interactive table of voice messages shown in the phone, their implementation goes well beyond that, offering all I wanted in a voice mail system.  Indeed, although I was considering other systems prior to getting the iPhone, I have since settled on Apple's simple but effective system.

Let's start with the obvious interface. Many mobile and PBX phones have long blinked a light when a new voice mail has been received, and some IP telephony systems now offer this as well.  In fact, my home DECT system interacts with my VOIP service to provide this type of notification.  In this way, Apple's system wasn't so different, adding a numeral over the phone icon in the home screen to indicate how many new messages have been received.

Next comes interacting with messages, and this is where Visual Voicemail differs from previous offerings.  Rather than dialing in to a central system, the iPhone downloads messages as audio files in the background and adds each as a line item to a voice mail inbox.  Being able to "scrub" back and forth to catch fleeting words (and numbers!) is extremely useful.  The ability to select which to listen to first based on caller and time (and message length, once you tap) is a nice feature, and easily the most recognizable.  But more importantly than call screening, this presentation transformed the way I look at my voice mail - I now see it as a collection of audio messages rather than transient communication.  This is akin to the difference between email and instant messages, where the former is more of a "real document" than the latter.  This is a key differentiator, and one that would be difficult to replace with another system, especially a hosted one.

Finally, there is another critical element to the iPhone's implementation of voice mail which is often overlooked, and that is the setup process.  All configuration functions are included in the phone's GUI, rather than on the servers of the carrier or in a web portal.  This has greatly simplified my daily use of the voice mail, encouraging me to set daily greetings, for example.  Rather than hoping that I selected the right greeting (and calling myself just to make sure!), the simple interface has been moved right to the phone. The fact that I have not had to "interact" with AT&T's voice mail system in almost a year has been a tremendous benefit, and one that most people might not be aware of.

In summary, Apple's implementation of visual voicemail on the iPhone has transformed an archaic touch tone menu system into a truly useful tool.  And that's enough for me to become a voicemail believer!   

 

I feel like voicemail will become unified with text messaging and email on the mobile platform as just another way to "leave a message" with someone. Basically, voicemail could be a text message with a sound file attached, so I don't see why you couldn't use the same interface for all of them.

 The problem with youmail.com and gotvoice.com is that they aren't integrated into the phone os like the standard voicemail, which makes them prohibitively long/expensive to use.  Even if they are totally free, they still take extra time from the standard voicemail checker.  Now if the standard checker integrated all of its messaging... that's the service I want.  I understand that the iPhone has something close to this, but I think that even the iPhone kinda refers to each as a separate group (voicemail, mail, text messages, etc).  They should all be in the same "messaging" box.

 

Voicemail transcription services are useless for the future -- the better handhelds have enough power to transcribe voice  messasges on the handset itself.  Having one single area that all messages on the phone are collected is way more useful -- i don't need to know i got a voicemail and an email and a text message, i just need to know there are 3 new messages.  I will see what kinds there are when i look in the "new messages" folder.  

Voice mail has been primarily used as a form of telephone answering, as opposed to a "mailbox-to-mailbox" form of asynchronous messaging which is dominated by email. However, Instant Messaging is rapidly replacing phone calls for short question/answers in real time, as well as a means of checking a person's availability for a phone call.  In addition telphony presence is becoming available  within organizations as part of unified communications; it allows you check your dashboard display of colleagues to detremine their availability/accessibility for a phone call.

All of the above means that "blind" phone calling, which results in failed attempts and consequential voice mail messages will become an inefficient way of communicating and will be minimized. Better yet, if a voice conversation is really required, the attempt will be handled in a more responsible and intelligent manner. That is, the attempt will result in an automatic call connection when both parties are willing and available to talk. 

As far as using voice to create a message, that will simply become an interface option for the contact initiator depending on their environment (e.g., while driving a car). The message recipient will be free to retrieve any message (text or voice) in the media suited their current environment as well. 

All that is part of the future of communicating,  which won't happen overnight. But the transition will be based upon the needs of an individual end user who can start deploying new services that support their personal needs as a contact initiator or a contact recipient/respondent. That is where new voice-to-text messaging services come into play as a recipient option for more efficient message management that is not based on a legacy telephone user interface.   

 

If you're getting so much voicemail that you can't keep up, here's a novel suggestion: answer your phone.

Either you're overcommitted, which means you need to delegate to support staff, or you are simply unresponsive. Listening and responding to voicemail is slower than answering the calls as they come in. Save time. Pick up the phone.

 

 

 

I used to hate voicemail with a passion.

This wasn't just an arbitrary decision on my part either. To give you a feel for my reasoning let me bring you back to the early 1990's. We were all rocking our Motorolla Bravo beepers or perhaps you had the express or the plus. Either which way you could only get numbers to show up on these cutting edge wonders of electronics. But for those important calls I also had voicemail on my pager. Someone could either key in their number or leave a voice message. The Voice Mail would show up on my pager with just my pager number requiring me to call in and check it. This irritated me back then and hasn't changed much to this day. Don't get me wrong we are all walking around now with portable communication devices that we could never have imagined back then. But enough is enough and it is time for Voice Mail to evolve as well.

 I am obviously not the first nor the last to think this. There has been lots of hoopla surrounding the visual voice mail feature that has become popular because of the iPhone. The service was here before the iPhone and has continued evolving after it as well. I have been using PhoneTag since it was called Simulscribe and I love it. What is there not to love about Visual voicemail with transcription.

Visual voicemail is great because you can see all your messages at a glance by just looking at your phone. But it does not transcribe and email them to you. PhoneTag has made my life easier. Isn't that what voicemail was supposed to do?  Well as the services pop up and their niche market is created it will get better and better.

 But, let’s look at the facts. 2 years ago when I got a voicemail and I was on the train all that would happen is I would get a little voice mail indicator notifying me that a message was on my phone carriers server waiting to be heard by me. No other information was offered up. Now when that message comes in I get an instant text message telling me a message came in, its duration and who it is from, If the person is in my address book the name is displayed instead of the number. That text message is followed by an email of the entire transcription of the message. Phone numbers are highlighted and the contacts email address is linked to the message. 

If someone left a phone number for you to call back on your voicemail you had to scurry to grab a pen and paper or something other than your mobile to jot it down on. Now I just click on the phone number in my email message and call the person back. Or how about just replying to the "PhoneTag" and have it sent to that contacts email address.

I foresee a mobile carrier snatching up Phonetag and adding it to its "Extras Menu". And if they don't do it PhoneTag will wind up a household name and a service as cherished as everyone’s BlackBerries!

So with all that said…

 

How are you checking your voice mail? 

 

Generally, voicemail comes from three sources:

• Mobile Phones
• Work
• Home

Traditionally that meant checking three voicemail boxes using various dialing sequences and audio menus. But now that landscape is changing because consumers are increasingly impatient with accessing messages through ungainly menus and wading through sprawling lists of unread and read messages.

Visual voicemail addresses these complaints effectively by transforming the voicemail user experience into a mimicry of e-mail. According to Pew Internet, 52% the people who access the Internet use it regularly to send or receive e-mail. That's over 74 million people all with established expectations about how easy it should be to send and receive information. They also are accustomed to e-mail interfaces so a system that provides a similar look and feel will seem instantly familiar to them.

Ease of use in mind, companies like AT&T, through its adoption of Apple's iPhone, and Sprint with its licensing of visual voicemail from Samsung Mobile are providing efficiency gains for their users and the net effect will be an increased use of voicemail as a communication medium.

But visual voicemail isn't alone, transcription services are also making data initially generated by voice more accessible. Transcription begins to blur the line between sending an e-mail and sending a voicemail because the end result is text. This still is an emerging technology though because often the transcriptions aren't completely accurate. For example Jott allows its users to create entire Wordpress blog posts using its technology, but transcriptions errors arise often enough to make professionals hesitant. Or at least obligated to indicate there may be more errors in an automatically transcribed post.

Still, transcription services are typically accurate enough right now to communicate the gist of an idea, and often that's adequate for people receiving the message.

Some services avoid the challenges of transcription by simply forwarding an audio file of all received voicemails to an e-mail address. This method at least reduces the number of places to check for new messages, but it still requires the appropriate place (quiet enough to hear) and equipment (speaker of some sort) to play the message.

Beyond visual voicemail and transcription services, a trend is emerging that's pushing for convergence. So instead of having three separate numbers for mobile, work and home, companies like GrandCentral provide a single number that rings all or some of your other phone numbers depending on settings and filters. GrandCentral will also forward an audio file of the voicemail to your e-mail address, and it wouldn't take a huge leave for the company to integrate some sort of transcription service, even if it decided to license the technology.

I'm surprised how bad voicemail interfaces are. One provider's voicemail service didn't couldn't even tell me what time the message was left. (And another insisted on making me review messages from the oldest to the newest — so I'd have to scroll through 10 saved messages before playing back the most recent one!)

Visual Voicemail solves this problem, but cell phones still have the same problem with voicemail that they do with web-surfing — tiny screens and tiny keyboards. That's why I like the idea behind GotVoice. My computer can handle the playback just as easily as my cellphone — and the interface is a lot easier. YouMail also lets you retrieve message online — and they've added some spiffy new features. There's really no reason to be locked into one outgoing message when you know you'd like to leave different messages for different friends.

Today's services prove that it's technologically possible to create many new and exciting options for voicemail — and I'm glad we're getting some choices. But at the same time, I have to laugh when I hear about services offering to convert a voicemail message into text. (For example, SpinVox in England.) A voicemail converted to text is really just — an email. Why buy a cell phone if you're not going to listen to the audio?!

I remember the standup comic who offered the ultimate critique of voicemail. "Without it, you can delude yourself that you're popular, and you're just missing the incoming phone calls. But with voicemail, there's numerical proof of your isolation. 'No, no one called you...'" There's a hint there for developers of voicemail applications. Most people don't get that much email — so there's no pent-up demand for a lot of their new features. The standup comic seemed to suggest that what's really needed is a service to generate voicemail.

I've heard it said that in our lifetimes, there'll be a massive convergence of everything. Television and movies will become one more form of digital entertainment, along with podcasts, videos, web pages, and Twitter feeds. There'll be less distinction between TVs, computers, cell phones, and PDAs, since all their capabilities will be readily available in virtually every location. I predict that at some point consumers will be asked to accept the idea that voicemail doesn't have to come from people we know. In the end, lots of digital entertainment services will be delivered in the voicemail format.

The web is already migrating from text to more audio and video content — and here's where it gets interesting. Cell phones are also evolving to include the ability to playback audio and video. The missing piece is cheap video cameras — but within a few years, we'll be talking about "video mails" instead of voicemails. (And there'll be the inevitable news stories about a sexy "video mail" forwarded to a friend which ended up becoming the latest viral cell phone meme.) We won't just be messaging our friends; we'll be hooked up for real-time video conversations wherever we are.

That can be a very positive thing — or it can feel slightly invasive. Video messaging will force everyone to reconsider their concepts of privacy, with people confronted with daily decisions about whether to appear on-camera. In the end, the problem may not be managing the voicemail messages from your friends. The real need may be for a way to hide from them!