TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: Making Voice Mail More Like Email

Re: Making Voice Mail More Like Email

DevilsPGD (spam_narf_spam@crazyhat.net)
Mon, 15 Jan 2007 05:25:37 GMT

In message <telecom26.13.8@telecom-digest.org> Monty Solomon
<monty@roscom.com> wrote:

> Despite spam and other problems, email is highly useful and
> effective. You can quickly send and receive messages, delete or
> forward them, and save them for reading at a later time.

Voicemail can do all of those, including the spam.

> A glance at your inbox can tell you a lot about each message,
> including its subject, sender and the time it was received.

It's hard to "glance" at a voice system. However, you can get that
same info out of a voicemail system too, if you desire.

You can't usually start in the middle, but you can still get the list
in chronological order without listening to any of the message
content, if you so desire.

> But voice mail lags behind in key ways. A voice mail still doesn't
> tell you the caller's name or reason for calling unless you listen to
> at least part of it.

Then your voice mail system is stuck in the stone age. Even my cell
phone's voice mail system tells me the number, if I ask for it.

> You usually can't reply to a voice mail with a
> message of your own, as with email; instead, you must call the person
> back.

My cell phone's voicemail can both reply to voicemail (if the caller
uses the same system), or automatically connect me to the caller's
phone number.

> And you can't easily jump from the most recent voice mail to the
> 10th without listening to every message in between.

This is tougher, mainly because it would be very difficult to interact
with a voice mail system due to the lack of interface.

> Still, voice mail has its place. A phone call is much more personal
> than an email, and lets you use vocal inflection to express your
> point, whereas email expressions can sometimes be misinterpreted. And
> it's often easier and faster to speak your message than to type it
> out.

It might be faster for the sender speak it, but it's a hell of a lot
faster for a recipient to read text then listen to you stumble through
a message, repeating parts, fading out because you're in a noisy or
windy location on your $5 cell phone or because *I* happen to be in a
noisy place.

Voicemail is for the convenience of the sender, email is for the
convenience of the recipient.

===================
If crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight
fire, what do freedom fighters fight?

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