13 Jul, 2009
Google Voice and the death of voicemail
Posted by: In: New and Noteworthy| Uncategorized
After months of anticipation, i was accepted to google voice. The significance of this product has not been fully realized.
In April 2009, NY Times wrote about the death of voicemail. For me, as a Software and Digital Media professional, 500 emails + 20 voicemail’s per day create a communications bottleneck. Whats worse, I have become lackluster in returning calls, creating frustration and problems with my personal life. Not good.
This triage table of getting back to people was simply not working. I just dont have the time to process hundreds of emails and dozens of voicemail’s.
So why am I so excited? Among dozens of features you can read about on their webiste, voice to text transcription is a godsend. I had a hard time explaining the signifigance of this to family and friends. In a nutshell, when someone calls you and leaves a voicemail, it gets transcribed into text, not just visual voicemail, not somewhere on the web, but text. Granted the translation misses a few words here and there, but I get a lot more out of this transcript than wading through voicemail messages of the past. I dont have to log into google voice, this text transcription is pushed directly to my cell phone, blackberry, etc.
Speaking to someone on the phone or on video chat are very powerful forms of communcation. For me, voicemail is a completely antiquated and i look forward to its demise.
