Web Service Wed: Youmail.com
It’s Wed — you know what that means. Web Service review time! I didn’t even wait until Thu.
I hate voicemail. It’s so damn inefficient. You have to call in, put in your pin, wait, wait, listen, people ramble, wait, delete…ack. I hate it. AT&T made it a bit nicer when they (finally) recognized your caller ID so you didn’t have to enter your PIN anymore. Thanks AT&T — that’s officially your biggest service innovation in about 5 years.
Enter Youmail.com, which I found out about through an ad in a txt message from Free411 (sorry Free 411, you’re doomed now that Google supports txting). It’s a nice service that blends a non-web component (your cell phone) with a web app.
I’ve been using Youmail.com for about 6 months now. It’s awesome. They tell you how to reprogram your cell phone and then you can:
- receive your voicemail via email, on their website, or transcribed via TXT (NOTE: THIS IS AWESOME, it’s about 70% accurate, but that’s all you usually need to get the gist of the message)
- setup individualized greetings per user — this really freaks people out! ex: “hey mom, thanks for calling me, I’m not here right now, later”
Some examples of the voicemail to txt feature…it’s actually really accurate, and doesn’t cost anything (unlike Vonage’s Indian-outsourced version that’s $.25/msg):
- “Hi Eric this is Greg news my anger just really getting back to you.” (Greg Newswanger, not News my anger) “Iraq Greg use my anger stories taking me a lot of get back to.” (Again, Newswanger not Use my anger)
- “Hi Eric this is rich minor. Up I just wondered where you are and whether you’re and ocean today I am.” Rich Meyer is his name…and he wanted to know whether I’m in Goshen today, not in the ocean today.
Uses:
- replace your standard cell phone voicemail, receive vm via txt, email, or by calling
Suggestions:
- not really a web app per se…in that I never go to the website…I’m not sure what value you could add to the web app that would get me there
Business model:
- ads in txt msg voicemails, emails, ads on website
- the service itself is free
+’s:
- just works, does what it says it will
- fun — freaks people out when they get individualized voicemails
- NEVER LISTEN TO VOICEMAIL AGAIN
- iPhone’s visual voicemail feature is no longer a “must have” iPhone feature
- vm to txt feature works great with numbers, which is the most crucial part
-’s:
- sometimes voicemail txts are delayed
- I let voicemail pile up…sometimes I’ll have to go thru 20 or so because I haven’t checked it the “traditional way” in a long time
