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Submitted by Mike Grenville on Sun, 10 Oct 2004 21:12 |
Instead of having to ring in to get your voice mail, SpinVox automatically delivers them to you converted into an SMS. This looks set to become a permanent feature on my phone!
We've all been there - you're in a meeting and an your phone starts vibrating with important call but you have to divert it to voice mail. Frustratingly you can see who it is from and really want to know what they have to say. If only they had sent you a text you say to yourself you could have dealt with it. To make it worse, you get an SMS from your operator telling you that you have voicemail but no clue as to what it was about.
Now a service has just been launched in the UK that believes it has solved the problem that could become revolutionise the way voice mail is delivered.
The service from SpinVox automatically converts voicemail to test and sends it to you as an SMS with a target message delivery of within three minutes.
The national average for mobile phone users is 2-3 voicemails per day and according to Motorola Research in 2003, 30 per cent of a user’s call time and spend is due to the difficult user interface of voicemail, forcing users to dial in again just to listen to key messages that they didn’t get the information from the first time around.
Accurate Conversion
SpinVox claims that its proprietary quality control process enables it to deliver messages with an average 98 per cent accuracy for message extraction. My own experiences with the service so far is that the messages have been uncannily accurate. A very few have been followed by (?) indicating some uncertainity in the conversion but were in fact correct. It even presented our URL correctly showing it as 160characters.org
As the voice message is held on the system for up 90 days, in contrast to the two or three days that most operators hold on to voice mail, one can always dial in to check what was actually said. SpinVox offers another advantage here as each message comes with a simple messages id, such as <*02>, so that you can go straight to a particular voice message.
Another advantage of using the service is that by using the Caller Line Identification (CLI), the message is delivered with the number of the sender as the originator of the message, making it much easier to call them back.
An Idea Is Born
Christina Domecq CEO and Co-founder came up with the idea when she came out of a meeting to find 14 voicemails on her mobile and getting inteupted with more while she was trying to listen to the messages already there. She imagined that there must be a service that could convert the messages to text and send them to her but found to her dismay that there wasn't.
She teamed up with Daniel Doulton (pictured) who had previously worked for Psion who as Managing Partner, co-founder and co-owner is helping make the idea a reality.
Doulton says that operators are so fixated on getting value from 3G services that they have so far not seized on the service. However he is convinced that they are on to a winner and points to the high interest that has been shown by phone retailers to distribute the service.
Habit Forming
"Users quickly find that 'dialing in' to check messages becomes the exception" says Doulton. "We've found that the average voice mail is 17.6 seconds which is translates to one or two 160 character text messages". The servoce limits voice mail to 30 seconds which should be ample for most purposes and a limit of three text messages.
The service costs about 20p per message and works across virtually all UK networks and with every make of handset as well as when one is roaming abroad. Indeed with the high cost of receiving voice mail when abroad, this could be a key benefit for some travellers.
Messages can also be delivered by email - a useful feature when you are travelling to a country that does not have GSM. Currently SpinVox is not available on some pre-paid mobile phones or fixed line phones that do not support call divert features
More Plans
After bedding down the service in the UK, SpinVox will be looking to export the service overseas with the US as a possible first step. However Doulton says that all options are open and are looking for local partners to help establish the service in other countries.
Other plans for the Spinvox speech-to-text services include a dictation tool for executives on the move. Next up will be integration of all voicemails from your mobile, office and home phones to be delivered automatically to your mobile as text messages.
As part of its launch, SpinVox is offering a one week free trial. Just text the word SPINVOX followed by the model of your phone to 84004 and you'll receive an activation code. I recommend that you try it - you may find that, like me, it will become a permanent feature on your phone.
www.spinvox.com
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