Hello to all GotVoice users and lovers!
During one of our maintenance windows this morning, we had a brief system outage, so you might not have received your voicemail transcriptions as quickly as usual.
Ooops. We’re sorry.
We have fixed the issue, but we know how important your voicemail is to you and how annoying it is not to receive your transcriptions right away. So we’re sending a personal email to all affected users, offering a credit as our thanks and to apologize for the inconvenience.
If you’ve ever left a blabbering voicemail after which you hung up, thinking, “Wow, I really sounded like an idiot,” just relax with this little bit of schadenfreude. It could have been worse. You could have been like this guy:
Thanks to David Wygant’s dating blog for the link to this video. His advice is good all around. A voicemail message is like a good presentation: it should be short, sweet and end with a call to action. Identify yourself, give your reason for calling, and give a compelling reason for a call back. “I have some information to share with you” or “I read that article you mentioned, and I’d love to talk with you about it” are good. Or, in the dating sphere, perhaps, “I had a great time meeting you and would love to hang out again.”
What about you–what is your advice for leaving a good voicemail message? Or what not to say?
With GotVoice’s voicemail transcription offerings, it would have been easy to see Google Voice as competition. Never mind the tiny fact that those who compete with Google rarely win, anyway; it’s more to the point that Google Voice actually did a huge service for the entire voice to text marketplace.
When Google Voice first came out, Spoken CTO Gilad Odinak said “someone finally brought the 21st century to phone service. And so it did. Users signed up by the thousands to try out Google’s free automated speech recognition (ASR) system and get free voicemail transcriptions. In a meeting? No worries. Google Voice would transcribe the call and send it to your cell via SMS as well as to the site archives. The convenience and productivity aspects were undisputed.
Until the transcriptions actually arrived. Lifehacker warned the transcriptions were not bad–”but don’t rely on it.” A number of websites have sprung up at the curiously inaccurate transcriptions. Even a hysterical Twitter account spouts random bits of nonsense gleaned from the automated service.
It’s not Google’s fault; most ASR engines only claim 40-50% accuracy at best; it’s simply a limitation of the technology.
And that’s exactly how Google Voice’s free service did the industry of voice transcription a huge favor. Before Google Voice, users were hard-pressed to justify trying out a new paid service. The barriers to entry were a bit higher: you had to get a new phone number, give your credit card number and try out a service that might not be worth it in the end. After all, you could just listen to your voicemails the old-fashioned way. So why take a risk on a new service?
Google Voice changed all that. The service was free, so the barrier to entry was practically nonexistant. Within months, thousands of users began to develop the habit of letting voicemails go to text, knowing the transcriptions would be stored for later perusal and sent as text SMS messages to their phones. The service was free, so it was no risk. And it created a user base that saw the value of voicemail transcription.
What’s more, it created a user base that saw the value of accurate voicemail transcripton. Now voice-to-text providers no longer had to surmount the hurdle of “why do I need a transcription?”; users had already tried the free version and began to see the value in receiving voicemail as SMS. What’s more, a percentage of those users began to think, “You know, I’d actually pay a bit more if I could get a more accurate transcription.”
And that is the service that Google Voice did for the voice to text market: took a base of users from “why would I want it?” to “why would I pay for it?” to “how much?” and “how accurate?”
Thanks, Google, for getting the ball rolling. Now, users are interested in finding out how accurate the transcription is for the monthly free; they’re already convinced there is a value to it.
It seems like we’re just back from Barcelona, and now we are packing us again to exhibit at the CTIA Wireless conference in Las Vegas, March 23-25, 2010! Once again, we’ll be teaming up with Acision, the internationally leader in SMS messaging, at stand 2917. We’ll be branded as Spoken Communications in the Partner Bar, so come by and enjoy a beverage and a demonstration.
Here’s what’s on the menu: since demonstrations of GotSearch comprehensive voice search were so popular at Mobile World Congress, we’re providing those again. And we got lots of call for information on our voicemail transcription solutions, so we’ll be demoing that as well.
For events during the show, including access to Acision’s cocktail party, be sure to follow us on Twitter.
Also, to schedule a demo of GotSearch, contact us here, and we’ll schedule a time. Looking forward to the show!
Here at Spoken, today was primarily booked with meetings with current and potential partners. What’s really nifty about Spoken’s primary technology is that, while it was developed to support efficiency and customer service in call center, the principle of having a human Silent Guide can be applied to just about ANY service in which voice or speech recognition and accuracy are important. We see this every day, and even more so here at Mobile World Congress!
That being said, we did get the chance to walk the show floor and see some of the innovations available out there in the mobile voice space. Discoveries from day three:
Today is the last day, and we’ll be in the booth with GotSearch until 4:00–please stop by Acision Partner Bar and say hello if you haven’t already!
Very exciting day today for Spoken’s GotSearch! We ran through quite a few demos for our partner here, Acision, to an overwhelmingly positive response. We’re hearing quite a bit about the need for a voice search solution that is accessible by feature phone, adaptable to different databases, and with the ability to help decrease the amount of distracted driving.
We also saw quite a few shiny new toys here in the mobile space as well:
Tomorrow is another day of meetings and demos with operators from around the world; give us a buzz to schedule one if you’re here.
Mobile World Congress opened its doors to 50,000 attendees in Barcelona today. The lines were long, but they went quite quickly. Much longer were the lines at local mobile stores, where non-local attendees flocked to purchase local mobile phones and SIM cards for Spain. A few notes from the first day of the conference:
Tonight, we join Acision for a cocktail reception in the booth in Hall 8–8A86. Come join us!
Seattle—February 11, 2010 Spoken Communications Inc., the hybrid voice technology innovator, will demonstrate for the first time
GotSearch, its new comprehensive voice search solution, at Mobile World Congress 2010 in Barcelona, Spain. Developed in conjunction with recently-acquired leading voice-to-text transcription provider GotVoice, GotSearch is being created to meet the unique needs of mobile operators.
“We’ve been looking at this space for a long time,” says Jonathan Kendrick, Chairman and CEO of ROK Mobile Group Ltd, the leading mobile entertainment company specializing in innovative mobile technologies. “And we’ve never found anything that we would put our name to until now. GotSearch is really quite different. We’ve never found anything quite like GotSearch, which stands out because of the level of accuracy it achieves. It works. It does what it says on the tin, as they say. And it reduces the cost of delivery for mobile operators by 90%. That enables us to deliver this solution to a lot of international markets, such as India and Pakistan.”
GotSearch offers mobile operators new revenue opportunities because it works on all mobile phones, not just smartphones, and because it provides a more accurate customer experience. GotSearch improves on currently available voice search tools by using Spoken’s
patented human Silent Guide system, which provides the most effective combination of automated voice technology with pinpoint human intervention through a patented software solution.
With GotSearch, mobile operators are able to:
“This is what mobile operators have been asking for,” says Howard Lee, CEO of Spoken Communications. “With Spoken’s GotSearch, they can offer voice search to feature phone and smartphone users alike, all at a fraction of the cost of delivering 411, with vastly increased accuracy and concierge service. Mobile operators can even insert ads, surveys and promotional offers with special appeal. GotSearch can also answer general questions, like ‘What is the World Cup?’ or ‘Who is Lady Gaga?’ And we will soon include the ability to make restaurant reservations, get traffic status and much more. It’s the best comprehensive voice search solution on the market today.”
Previews of Spoken’s GotSearch will be available at Mobile World Congress from Feburary 15th-18th. To sign up for a demonstration or a live trial of GotSearch, visit www.spoken.com/gotsearch.
About Spoken Communications
Spoken Communications provides hybrid voice technology solutions to call centers, telecommunications companies and consumers that ensure a successful call experience. With Spoken, voice technology is combined with pinpoint human intervention in a single solution, because the caller experience matters. For more information, please visit www.spoken.com, call 1-888-9-SPOKEN, Twitter @spokencomm or subscribe to our blog at http://blog.spoken.com.
[Cross-posted from the Spoken blog]
What do users really want in mobile voice search?
That’s the sticky question we’ve been seeking to answer as Spoken develops an innovative new voice search service. How is it that cell phone users, smartphone and feature phone alike, search for information when they are on the road?
The survey on voice search habits (it’s still open, so please do take
it and give us more feedback) provides a wealth of information on how
mobile phone users use their phones on the road when they need
information. A big THANK YOU to everyone who took time out of their
days to take the survey.
The survey revealed the following tidbits:
The survey was simple, with just six questions:
Of roughly 100 survey participants, 79.6% had smartphones, versus 20.4% with feature phones. Responses to the next question showed that a large percentage of users–about 52%–use smartphone apps to search for information on the road, while only a relatively small percentage–about 13%–use the traditional phone voice search service, 411, to get information.
When you are driving, how do you search for information?
In the Other option for this question, 14 respondents wrote in that they used in-car navigation or GPS, while other write-ins included printing out directions before leaving, pulling over to use a map website from a smartphone (8), using a map website on their smartphones while driving or handing the phone to a passenger.
The next two questions were designed to determine if 411 still has popularity as a mobile voice search service. Over 78% of respondents replied that they have not used 411 at all in the last month; additionally, over 81% did not even know how much they would be charged for a 411 call.
The final two questions were geared at discovering when and why users make calls on the road.
Of the mobile calls you’ve made in the last month, what percentage were from the car?
Interestingly, the primary reason cited for making calls from the car was productivity: “saves time,” “multitasking,” “making use of commute time.” Not having office distractions/having focus, communicating tardiness or en route and connecting with business and social contacts were mentioned as well. A few answered “its the only time I really have to talk to people” and “because I am lonely”, while about 10% of respondents reported not making any phone calls from the car, citing safety concerns.
I bet you were hoping for something exciting after that last post, but alas all I have for you is a service announcement.
As part of Spoken’s GotVoice acquisition, GotVoice is switching a couple of its service providers. As this point there is only one service left to be switched, and that is our inbound SIP service. This will affect phones that are call-forwarded to the GotVoice service and the dial-in dispatch service.
We are planning on moving this service on Thursday, Feb 4th, 2010 between 3pm PST and 4pm PST. The transfer should only take 5 to 10 minutes.
We are planning on moving this service on Friday, Feb 5th, 2010 between 9am PST and 10am PST. The transfer should only take 5 to 10 minutes.
If you have any questions, please leave a comment here or contact your GotVoice associate.
RT @phonelicious: Survey: Developers Rooting for Android’s Long Term Success http://bit.ly/aAZwRw #Ypipes THANK YOU to all the @got_voice users that received the newsletter and took the user survey! Fascinating results! Bypassing voicemail menus in Europe: http://ht.ly/1PGXa (via David Pogue) Yikes! And people are concerned about privacy on Facebook? Would you want your voicemails posted publicly? http://ht.ly/1PGV6 
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