Time For Voice-Mail To Throw In the Towel

theodp writes "Slate's Farhad Manjoo feels the end of voice-mail is nigh, and it won't be missed. Since March, he's been using Google Voice to transcribe his voice-mail messages into text that he gets as skimmable e-mail. No more listening to at least a bit of each voice-mail message, hearing the same instructional prompts between each, and worrying about whether it's 9-to-archive and 7-to-skip (or vice versa). Goodbye and good riddance, says Manjoo, to an 'absurdly backward mode of human-computer interaction' that he half-jokes must violate the Geneva Conventions."

Comments

i ignore voice mail

[wjh31]

it costs me to listen to it, and if it's important enough, they'll call again or leave a text or something

Re:i ignore voice mail

[linzeal]

Yeah, I have listened to my voice messages like 10 times since 1996. It is a cumbersome way to try to communicate someone. Since 2006 my current voicemail box has been full since Verizon does not allow you to choose to not have the service.

Re:i ignore voice mail

[TubeSteak]

it costs me to listen to it

On most networks, if you call your own phone number, you get kicked over to voicemail and it is considered an in-network call (AFAIK) that doesn't cost you anything.

Re:i ignore voice mail

[interkin3tic]

I also ignore my voicemail. Big problem though: Mom.

Hearing "Hello you have reached 'Mother, please, we've been over this, do NOT leave a message, I'll call you back without checking my voice mail anyway, and voicemail is annoying'..." only makes her leave upset messages on my voice mail. Failure to set up my voice mail so that she can't leave any message only leads to that being the sole topic of conversation every time we actually DO talk on the phone.

I'm sure I'm not alone in saying "Please, let voice mail die faster so my mother can't leave extremely long rambling messages which I have to listen to or face the penalty."

Re:i ignore voice mail

[quenda]

Thats a bit rude!
Why don't you just turn it off so they don't get prompted to leave a message? Its ##21# to cancel all diverts.

Re:i ignore voice mail

[Frnknstn]

If you are able to ignore your voicemail, then YOU aren't important enough.

Re:i ignore voice mail

[supernova_hq]

If you move out, she won't have to leave you a message saying dinner is ready.

Re:i ignore voice mail

[dbcad7]

But isn't that the same time you would have spent if you had answered the call in the first place ?.. and isn't it kind of selfish to make someone call you back a second time?.. I mean isn't their time money too ? ... With a few exceptions, most people don't want to leave a voice mail, so the fact that they do, either means they want to give you information, or to tell you to call them back. To ignore voice mails altogether is just being crappy and rude.. and if you legitimately have that many people who leave pointless time wasting voice mails, then it makes more sense to get a new number with ID blocking, and don't give it to those people.

Re:i ignore voice mail

[PopeRatzo]

I'd be careful to think that voice mail is only an 'absurdly backward mode of human-computer interaction'. Since I am hearing a person's voice, it is a 'human-human' interaction and one that's rich in information if you care about details.

There is more information and meaning in a 15 second voice mail than in any text. Is the caller angry? Sad? Frustrated? What did the environment he was calling from sound like?

If you think that simply converting all voice mail to text is going to solve the problem, you're missing out. I would think that a jog-wheel to allow me to speed up the voice mails, along with some audio or visual cues to let me know when the message ends would be much more efficient than speech-to-text while maintaining all the meta-information. Just get rid of those stupid menus completely. Since it's trivial to speed up a person's voice without altering the pitch using DSP you'd still be able to understand the message at 10x speed (or more) and still keep the subtler message intact.

I know some voice mail systems already allow speeding up the message, but it's not very intuitive and you still get those awful menus. Plus, the voice on the menus speaks So. Fucking. Slowly. When. They. Tell. You. What. Time. The. Person. Who. Left. The. Message. Called.

I would think that information could be imparted to me much more quickly. Yes voice-mail systems suck. Text is not necessarily the answer unless I can get a great novelist to pre-screen the messages and then write me a few paragraphs describing what the person said and how they said it, etc. Even so, I like hearing my wife's voice. She's got an accent that is like music to my ears and never fails to make me smile even after all these years. Happy mothers day from the kid and me, ljubavi.

Re:i ignore voice mail

[bhima]

I have been going through this with my mother since they invented answer machines. She will call and just carry the same one sided conversation she had on her mind when she dialed. With the exception of putting the most important tidbit at the end (like the fact the family is getting together for dinner or whatever). I have not listened to recorded message start to finish since something like 1989... so I never hear these things.

I thought that email would help this. But she sends email like they are telegrams and she is paying per letter. And she treats her email like a postal box: She checks it once a month.

So these days I disable voice-mail on every device I come in contact with... just in case my daughter or my girlfriend begin to develop the same habit.

Re:i ignore voice mail

[Snaller]

"Failure to set up my voice mail so that she can't leave any message only leads to that being the sole topic of conversation every time we actually DO talk on the phone."

But that's great! Then you don't have to talk about your skipping school, growing weeds in your bathroom and that you are coming out as gay! Safe topics!

Re:i ignore voice mail

[Like2Byte]

Oh. My. God! I have this same problem with my father.

Call #1: Short and sweet, "Hey, son, gimme a call."
Call #2: with an angry tone and bent, "How come you never answer your phone. No one can ever get a hold of you."
      Makes me *really* want to call him back. Not.
Call #3: Just as angry....same message as #2, now with more filler and far more colorful.
Call #4: So angry there is about 10 seconds of silence on the phone, then, "Fuck it!" and hangs up.

Seriously, if they weren't so full of hate because I wasn't able (or unwilling) to answer, they'd be hilarious.

Recently, and this is a no shitter. I called my parents to get the number to one of my cousins. Got the number and gave the cousin a call. I left a message because he wasn't there. Hours later I'm mountain biking in an area with VERY bad reception (mostly only enough reception for text messages).
My phone rings a few times. Three messages are left. I imagine it's my cousin trying to return my call. (I dont stop while mountain biking in a bad reception areas because it's usually futile.)
Here's a transcript of those messages:

Msg #1, (Cousin): Hey, man, I got your message, just returning your call.
Msg #2, (Cousin): Ok, just me again, you must be busy.
Msg #3, (father): (in an angry voice from the *start*!) Carl. Kevin called us and he is *trying* to call you. You called him to get a hold of him because you had specific questions and now you wont answer your god damned phone. No one can..yadda yadda yadda.

Yeah, I'm thinking that killing voice mail makes a lot of sense. Of course, if that happens I'd have to listen to my father directly. Yeah, that's going to be fun. Not.

Prolog
  While I wrote this up expecting Informative I'm sure it's going to get modded Funny.
  Also, save your typing. We all know father has issues.

Re:i ignore voice mail

[frdmfghtr]

If you think that simply converting all voice mail to text is going to solve the problem, you're missing out. I would think that a jog-wheel to allow me to speed up the voice mails, along with some audio or visual cues to let me know when the message ends would be much more efficient than speech-to-text while maintaining all the meta-information. Just get rid of those stupid menus completely.

I suggest you find somebody with an iPhone and try visual voicemail. It's like e-mail, except you listen to the messages instead of reading them, and in any order you choose. You can swipe back and forth in the message to re-listen to parts, and the slider shows time elapsed and time remaining while listening to the message. The message is labeled with the time and date of the call as well as the caller's name if in your contacts list.

At the start of the year, I tried going back to a Motorola RAZR for daily use, and the first thing that I missed enough to go back was visual voicemail.

Re:i ignore voice mail

[bondsbw]

Like you, I seem to be one of the few people who actually likes the concept of "voice" mail. But I also think it is flawed, because voicemail fails to accomplish true delayed voice interaction.

With email, I can send a message expecting that the receiver will get around to it whenever they want. IM is the opposite; the receiver is expected to respond immediately. Each of these has its place in the world... if not, email would have died many years ago.

Phone calls mirror IMs in the voice world. But voicemail can only be sent when a person fails to answer a phone call. I think this is a flaw. It might sound nit-picky, but sometimes I want to send someone a voice message without them dropping everything to attend to me. Maybe I want to send it while driving... not that I recommend use of the phone while driving, but it's far better to voice message than to text message.

Re:i ignore voice mail

[nine-times]

Plus, the voice on the menus speaks So. Fucking. Slowly. When. They. Tell. You. What. Time. The. Person. Who. Left. The. Message. Called.

The "visual voicemail" on the iPhone is really a pretty good solution. Phone-based menu systems suck, but there's nothing wrong with voicemail itself.

Re:i ignore voice mail

[D Ninja]

I'm honestly surprised that he even gets cell phone reception in the basement.

Re:i ignore voice mail

[MBaldelli]

Diatribe snipped

Also, save your typing. I know I have father issues.

There. Fixed that for you.

Re:i ignore voice mail

[timeOday]

There is more information and meaning in a 15 second voice mail than in any text. Is the caller angry? Sad? Frustrated? What did the environment he was calling from sound like?

We have a whole generation of people who grew up with the textual Internet. I think they are more comfortable communicating by text, either because they're better writers, or because they have a richer set of conventions for conveying emotion that way, or because they are accustomed to the emotional ambiguity.

The question isn't whether you get more information from a 60 second voicemail than you get from skimming an email in 10 seconds; the contest is between listening to 1 voicemail or skimming 6 emails.

Re:i ignore voice mail

[Xaoswolf]

Verizon Wireless has a ton of phones with visual voicemail. Also, if you have a blackberry, you can sign up for youmail (or is it umail) which does the same thing.

Re:i ignore voice mail

[Xaoswolf]

Could be one of those fancy nerds who lives in the attic.

Re:i ignore voice mail

[david in brasil]

Beans. For making deals, getting people's buy-in, collaborating on ideas, etc., never text or email when you can talk on the phone. Never talk on the phone when you can talk face to face. You can seclude yourself in a don't-bother-me text cocoon, but that doesn't make you more productive.

Re:i ignore voice mail

[cortesoft]

All of that is the opposite with my plan and phone (iPhone on AT&T here in the US)...

1) Voicemail is easy to use (not linear, you can scan through to the end of messages, replay them, skip messages, etc)
2) It's free... always free to listen to the message, and free to leave if they are on AT&T, call from a landline, or call on evenings.
3) Texts are certainly NOT free. 10 cents each to send and receive... or $20 bucks a month for unlimited...

So clearly things aren't always the same.

Re:i ignore voice mail

[oldhack]

Jee, that's even more asinine than what I do. I only return calls if they leave a voice mail - i.e., important enough for them to leave a message.

Re:i ignore voice mail

[westlake]

I still stand by the belief that the symbol of power, the REAL status symbol of the future, will be the ability to be completely unreachable.

If you want distance, you hire a secretary.

If you want power, you must remain approachable. Out of sight, out of mind.

Re:i ignore voice mail

[Mister_Stoopid]

That sounds a little better, but I still have to listen to the whole message at least once to figure out what's in there. Someone should make an iphone app that is exactly like visual voicemail, but also displays a text-to-speech version of the voicemail while you're playing it back. Preferably you would also be able to set it for "text only" mode or "text first, play audio if I tell you to" mode. That I could tolerate.

Re:i ignore voice mail

[derfy]

http://www.slydial.com/

Two words, one of which is two words.

[Xenex]

Visual voicemail.

The concept of voicemail is sound; the technology has been poor. Visual voicemail fixes the technology.

Re:Two words, one of which is two words.

[David Gerard]

As TFA points out, by encouraging you to use the metadata - who called and when - and just delete the actual voicemail.

Re:Two words, one of which is two words.

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Visual Voicemail does show the phone number, and it will stay on your screen for a long time.

Does it still work if caller ID is blocked? Can it tell if the person wants you to call back on a different number? And what about other info that doesn't have anything to do with where the caller is calling from, such as an address, quote for an item number, etc...

And if you can't "quite make out" some piece of information, how do you expect a computer to do so?

Because the person sending it will be typing it out and seeing it on a display before they send it. I don't care about Google's text-to-speech thing because that's still partly voice mail.

Re:Two words, one of which is two words.

[DarkOx]

Its interesting that you say that. Most peoples minds can work with five complex propositions or seven to ten simples ones at a time. You can handle more complex thinking about things your are familiar with. Your own phone number or your girl friends is probably one prop for your mind. You have assembled it into one logical object.

Someone you don't phone often on the other hand often requires your brain to deal with it as a string of digits, each using its on slot. There maybe savings when you are familiar with area and exchange codes in most cases. If you are dealing with unfamiliar phone numbers, are not accustom to the area and exchange codes, and then get saddled with some internal PBX extension that is going to be difficult for most people to remember and work with while also attempting to retain other information being delivered in the message.

A pad and paper is really your best bet. No amount of memory practice is going to enable you to perform such a task. Familiarity might. If you call people in Rochester everyday you eventually learn the area code out there is 585. Now when you hear a phone number you just remembering "Rochester" (short term) and the final seven digets (short term); eight things instead of ten and when you go to make the call you retrieve the 585 from memory (long term).

Not anytime soon

[AuMatar]

Text to speech isn't anywhere near 100% yet. Until it is, voicemail isn't going anywhere. Beyond which, human voice can impart additional meaning in tone that text can't. We probably could make better voicemail systems, but I don't see a lot of effort going into that. It isn't really a revenue generator for anyone, and the existing systems aren't that bad to use. 1 button to delete, 1 to save, 1 to repeat. I'd like to see fast forward and rewind like old tape based answering machines had, but that's about all it needs.

Re:Not anytime soon

[ledow]

I agree. This is like saying that fax is obsolete because we have text/handwriting recognition. You are throwing away *far* too much is you image->text or speech->text, although they could be used for summary/convenience in certain cases. And sometimes you need alternate methods of communication - putting everything into the same basket (i.e. your email account) is just stupid.

Additionally, the loss of information doesn't necessarily make it more convenient at all. You go on holiday, lose/break your phone and swap the sim card (maybe with a borrowed phone). You don't *necessarily* get the capability to receive that text (e.g. Internet, email, etc.) but you can still listen to your voicemail. It's low-tech, but sometimes that helps.

Personally, I detest voicemail whether on mobile phones or in the office. It's a pain. But it still exists, gets specified and built-in because it's "free", easy, simple and works. It's for a medium that doesn't have a better alternative for saving messages (voice) and thus it isn't going anywhere. And I don't trust *anything* that claims to be able to do a "human" job... translating, understanding, transcribing, recognising, etc. Why? Because they cause more trouble than they are worth unless you want a quick, casual, inaccurate job. This includes any form of handwriting recognition, OCR, "image recognition" (web filter systems etc.), speech recognition, text-to-speech, computer translation, etc.

Re:Not anytime soon

[krunk4ever]

I agree, especially when Google Voice's text to speech only does English at the moment.

I may be in the smaller crowd here, but I hate phone calls and use voicemail to screen calls. When I say "screen", I'm also referring to the urgency.

When someone calls me and either I don't know the number calling in nor I don't feel like talking on the phone at that particular moment (even if it's someone I know), I use voicemail to screen.

If the call is important enough, they'll leave a voicemail or try calling again later. If they don't leave a voicemail, I don't bother calling back since I deem the call wasn't really urgent/necessary.

Re:Not anytime soon

[hackstraw]

Text to speech isn't anywhere near 100% yet.

Can you here me? Hello? Hello? Oh, sorry, what did you say, the connection broke up a second.

People have spoken (no pun intended) that they prefer convenience, availability, and portability over service quality. People accept lower quality audio compared to even the 60s, 70s and 80s for the ability to have more variety of music at their disposal, lower quality video (DVD, cable) over high definition (OTH, Blu-ray), and of course the unreliable wireless phone service over reliable wired phone service.

Beyond which, human voice can impart additional meaning in tone that text can't. We probably could make better voicemail systems, but I don't see a lot of effort going into that. It isn't really a revenue generator for anyone, and the existing systems aren't that bad to use. 1 button to delete, 1 to save, 1 to repeat. I'd like to see fast forward and rewind like old tape based answering machines had, but that's about all it needs.

More arguments against your own case. There is no market for a better voicemail system. Would you pay for one? I consider voicemail a last resort if the person's phone is off or whatever the sequence is when the person does not answer the phone. Odds are the call was recorded in their log, and 99.9% of the time the voicemail says "I called you, can you call me?", which is redundant because why would someone call someone if they didn't want to talk to them? Text messages, voice mail, a note, interdepartmental mail or postal mail are all asynchronous means of communicating without using voice. AND I CAN CONVEY ADDITIONAL MEANING IF NEEDED!!!!

I guess if you are musically inclined or have superior voicemail skills, then voicemail might be viewed as a feature over other means of communication. But for the rest of us, you will either call back or I'll call you back, or maybe, just maybe I'm ignoring your phone calls and voice mails for a reason, and you will figure that out in time, yet in the meantime you will only continue to annoy me by calling and, and making me delete every one of your voicemails without listening to them. Here is a typical interaction with my voice mail:

Computer voice: Voice call from 666-555-1234
Caller: "Hi, its..."
Computer voice: Message deleted

In our society, a 2 second delay at a stoplight will get a honk behind you. That simple voicemail interaction takes about 30 seconds for one message. And about 1 minute if you have to delete 5-10 messages.

Re:Not anytime soon

[ewrong]

Indeed as an Englishman I've only ever managed to get any speech recognition software to work by putting on a fake American accent. Considering people who leave voicemails for me regularly come from places such as The Netherlands, France or India, so are using a second language, I think it's going to be a long time before something like this is actually useful.

Re:Not anytime soon

[Anonymous Coward]

This is like saying that fax is obsolete because we have text/handwriting recognition.

I think the fax is obsolete. Many printers have the option to create a PDF of a scanned file. This file can be sent via email or stored. It's much easier for me to send or receive via email than try to hunt down a fax machine.

Re:Not anytime soon

[Jeff DeMaagd]

[quote]If they don't leave a voicemail, I don't bother calling back since I deem the call wasn't really urgent/necessary.[/quote]

The problem is that there really doesn't seem to be an agreed-upon social convention, and all these differences get to be irritating and reduce productivity or connectivity. Some people don't leave messages under any circumstances, so you're not going to get them from those people. Some people turn off refuse to check their voicemail or turn it off. I've had cases where voicemail was turned off and that was the only way to communicate to them in a reasonable time frame. These idiosyncrasies are annoying.

Re:Not anytime soon

[nine-times]

This is like saying that fax is obsolete because we have text/handwriting recognition.

No, fax is obsolete because it's a stupid technology. Scan it to PDF and email it.

Sorry, I know it's off-topic, but I get annoyed whenever someone asks me to fax something, or wants to fax me something. You may as well be asking me to dial into your BBS system so we can share files.

Re:Not anytime soon

[nine-times]

You might as well say that phone is obsolete because we have VoIP or Skype.

I would say normal phone service will be obsolete when everyone can get an Internet connection with enough bandwidth to handle VoIP. Until then, it's safe. I also think that, sooner or later, after we all have enough bandwidth to download HD video with no problem, cable TV providers and even TV "channels" may become obsolete.

But anyone who can fax something can get Internet access capable of sending/receiving emails. Fax technology in this day and age is approaching "silly".

Re:Not anytime soon

[krunk4ever]

If it was a urgent call and given that they have no way of confirming that I got the missed call notification, I would say it's upon the caller to call again or try to contact me in some other way.

That's great...

[kirbysuperstar]

..if you live in America. I'm pretty sure Google Voice isn't available elsewhere.

Re:That's great...

[AlexBirch]

This isn't available to everyone in the USA, just the Grand Central customers. This has been one of Google's larger failures.

Re:That's great...

[BikeHelmet]

Give it time.

I'm pretty sure they know they have a winner here - which means if they open it up before getting prepared, it'll get clogged and DOS itself.

With the economy in a slump, and mounting youtube costs, they'll probably also examining ways to make Google Voice self-sufficient.

Re:That's great...

[AlexBirch]

Please at least read my post before responding. I didn't say that the service was a failure, just that Google hasn't delivered as promised. They announced that it was going to be rolled out to everyone who wanted an account back in March and they haven't done it. If I were the only person without an account it'd be different.
As Ben Franklin said, "Promises may get thee friends, but non-performance will turn them into enemies."

as a deaf person

[Anonymous Coward]

this is pretty cool and very useful.

Re:as a deaf person

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I'm sure all your friends will be glad you finally stop ignoring their voicemail messages. Until now they must've been thinking you were rude.

Ah yes transcription

[blowdart]

My other half uses a transcription service, SpinVox for her mobile phone which takes the messages and sends them via text message and email. Unfortunately I have a rather non-standard accent, what with the elocution lessons my parents made me take during my childhood in Northern Ireland, spending half my life in England and my default ability to try to match the speaking patterns of who I am talking to. It consistently mangles it's transcription of my messages.

A more interesting (for me anyway) approach for me is that taken by Microsoft's unified communications stuff where I've seen your phone number route through to your computer to Office communicator, with voicemails being emailed as attachments. Of course this is very corporate centric, but it strikes me as more useful. Sure you have to listen to the attachment, but there's no risk of misunderstanding because a transcribing service got it horribly wrong.

Re:Ah yes transcription

[fprintf]

I don't know if it exists, but it would be cool to have a combination of both. That is, the email comes through with the attempted transcription *and* the original audio as an attachment. I can then read the email and if it makes sense, that is it isn't too terribly mangled, then I can then decide whether to skip, archive or delete. But if it just doesn't look right or I do want to listen to it either right now or later I can still do so.

Re:Ah yes transcription

[ilo.v]

... it would be cool to have a combination of both. That is, the email comes through with the attempted transcription *and* the original audio as an attachment

Most of them work that way, although often the email only contains a link to the audio file, not the file itself. If you want the file sent so you can hear it when offline, try Phone Tag http://phonetag.com/ I have used them, and Google Voice, for a while. Their accuracy is (obviously) MUCH better than Google Voice, because they are using humans to do the transcription.

Of course, the next Google killer-app...

[kclittle]

... will be a text-to-voice service that will read your Google Voice mail to you...

Has this guy never used an iPhone?

[Graymalkin]

To answer my own rhetorical question he has, he spends a paragraph musing over Visual Voicemail. I don't quite understand what his problem with it is, the iPhone lets you not listen to messages as easily as it lets you listen to them. It also makes sure messages are associated with contacts in your address book so its obvious who the voicemail is from. He could just used the "missing calls" screen or listen to the voicemails or just throw his phone in a lake because he doesn't seem to be a good conversationalist anyways.

The main complaint of the article isn't a technical one, both Visual Voicemail and Google Voice solve the technical problems with voicemail. His real problem is a social one. His friends are assholes and leave messages consisting of "call me back" knowing they're calling his cell phone and more to the point probably know he has an iPhone or doesn't like checking his voicemail. He's not using the iPhone's ability to ignore useless voicemails and his friends don't seem to register the fact he has caller ID and will be able to see he missed their call.

This is a vexing situation because these people have probably had cell phones for the past ten years if not longer. They know everyone has caller ID and their phones alert them to missed calls. There's no need to waste the time on "call me back" voicemails for anyone. At the same time voicemail is not without its uses. Voicemail can be left by anyone with a phone including landlines. Your SO can leave a message from their landline work phone saying they'll be late for dinner or your kid's school can tell you to come pick them up because they're sick. Voice also tends to be a bit more information dense than printed words since it can convey emotion as well as information.

Oh well, we should all ditch voicemail because a Slate writer has dumbass friends.

Re:Has this guy never used an iPhone?

[AlexBirch]

I have a few friends like you, who assumed I would see all missed calls. This assumption is dangerous, especially if you have AT&T. If you are going to call someone, for the love of all that's good and holy, at least have one sentence summary about why you're doing it.

~~
The most exquisite folly is made of wisdom too fine spun.
~ Benjamin Franklin

Re:Has this guy never used an iPhone?

[jabithew]

Over here in the UK most providers even send you a text if you missed a call while your phone was out of signal.

Pfft!

[msimm]

"Beyond which, human voice can impart additional meaning in tone that text can't."

Bah! I fully expect my transcribed voice mail to include :-D lulz ROFLcopter )-': to impart those more nuanced details.

Voice Mail and Email will converge

[religious freak]

I disagree. Voice mail will not go away. It will eventually converge with email.

Sometimes I want to hear someone speak to understand tone, sometimes I want to read to save time. I think voice and email will converge. Just because he's getting speech to text doesn't mean he'll want to destroy the speech data. What if you don't know someone is being sarcastic, or if you just happen to miss the sound of someone's voice?

Alternatively, I think a simple text to speech feature will eventually come about too. Though theoretically not quite as useful for gauging emotion (though I'm sure some "emotional emphasis" could probably be added without too much difficulty), some people may prefer to hear a text message when they're doing things like driving.

It will certainly be refined and perfected over the next decade or so, but as the summary states, it's already starting to happen.

Switched it off

[agw]

I switched my voice mail off, so I don't need to check my messages, because "the leaving of a message is one half of a social contract which is completed by the checking of the message.

If that social contract breaks down then all social contracts break down. We decent into anarchy."

language barrier?

[Krupuk]

Voice-to-text is great if you speak English or another language spoken by at least 20 million people. If you're part of a minority, not so.

Sometimes vocals are necessary

[dontmakemethink]

Although I check my voicemail via emailed attachments, most of them are rather urgent, and mere text does not convey the whole story. There's no way anyone can convince me they leave the same message on voice mail as they do on a SMS text message.

Here's a real example of two messages I received two days ago:
[text] you gotta minute?
[voice] Man I'm in a jam, I've got an offer to jump in on a European tour, but we don't have the right demo, they want something raw, can we cut something in the club?

That is a personal favor and no way it gets approved via text. It would be ignored, and the sender would be PNG instead of on his way to Europe.

Re:Sometimes vocals are necessary

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that you've communicated it to us perfectly well using text.

Re:Sometimes vocals are necessary

[Anubis IV]

Also, texting is an inherently less personal medium than vocal communication, and for many people is perceived as inappropriate in certain situations. When you have a personal favor to ask of someone, adding a personal touch by actually talking to them, even if it's only indirectly via a voicemail, goes a long way.

Not A Chance In Hell.....

[IHC Navistar]

Voice Mail is easier than E-Mail.

With voice mail, you can:

1: Delete by quickly pressing 1 key,
2: Don't get as NEARLY as much SPAM mail,
3: You just need a cheap phone, and not a whole computer, internet access, ISP, etc.

Voice mail will never go away. Period. I wish these 'tech people' would quit making their bizarre predictions just to get their name in a magazine or article.

Re:Not A Chance In Hell.....

[drjuggler]

I read slate regularly and this guy's headlines have gotten on my nerves. I see three or four of them each week sucking up to the latest features being developed by Google and Facebook. After I read a couple it became clear that not only does he not have an inkling of what goes into the tech to make it successful he never delves into alternatives. It's as though he, and anyone reading his vapid column, has no use for a computer other than as a social networking box. Maybe this is appropriate for a 'culture site' like Slate but I'd rather go there for politics and find my technology analysis elsewhere.

Re:Not A Chance In Hell.....

[ThrowAwaySociety]

Voice Mail is easier than E-Mail.

With voice mail, you can:

1: Delete by quickly pressing 1 key

If only. My office voicemail uses two keys (* 3) and my cell phone use one, totally different key (7) and my previous cell phone used a different key altogether. And i have to remember which one's which.

Whereas with email, you do get one-key delete. And it's always the same key. And that key is helpfully labeled "Delete."

Thinly veiled advertisement for a new service

[petes_PoV]

Google voice is not generally available and is due to be rolled out soon.

This "article" reads like someone who is either trying to promote the new service with a little extra publicity - or is trying to prove how techno-savvy he/she is by using a leading edge tech.

Well, yawn, I really don't care.

I dunno...

[MichaelTheDrummer]

Listening to drunken messages left on my voicemail is often the highlight of a Sunday morning hangover.

Visual Voicemail

[Andy Smith]

Visual Voicemail on the iPhone should have "fixed" the user-unfriendly nature of traditional voicemail. But alas, here in the UK, it is all-too-frequently unavailabe, either due to lack of a mobile signal (even though the messages are stored on your phone, Visual Voicemail is disabled if you lose signal), or due to unspecified faults that result in you being told smply that Visual Voicemail is unavailable and you must dial in to access your voicemail manually. A potentially great service, crippled by some horrible "service DRM" that shuts it off as soon as the service isn't there.

Like many iPhone users, I often evangelise about the iPhone and encourage my friends to get one. But I always include one caveat: DON'T get it based on the attraction of Visual Voicemail. The feature is so often unavailable that you should regard it as non-existant.

Different Languages?

[Faizdog]

I have some services, such as Vonage, that attempt to provide a speech-to-text transcription of your voicemail to your email. However, being someone not originally born in the US, many of my voicemails tend to be in another language.

Staying in touch with my family is very important to me, and if I'm missing their voicemails, then I can't use these services. It will be a long time before a lot of the world's languages have speech-to-text conversion and an automatic service could recognize which language is being spoken and then use the appropriate conversion.

So I don't think voicemail will go away at all, perhaps become less common.

I love voicemail

[UncleWilly]

It gives the caller the illusion (maybe it's my message) that the message is Very Important to me and will be returned (right, delete) ASAP!

Re:Only in the USA

[localoptimum]

Well, all that you say is true, but that isn't what I meant.

The money comes from people phoning you. Voicemail is active as default and most people don't disable it.

When you ring someone else and they don't answer, the voicemail picks up and you pay for one minute of a phone call. That is a lot of money when your customers have thousands of missed calls per day. If the other network reciprocates, then the networks have a tidy income and the customers pay to listen to a robot beep at them.

Voice mail is an american thing

[saigon_from_europe]

And it was never popular in Europe.

In Serbia, our fixed line monopolist Telekom does not offer voice mail. On the other side, all of our mobile providers do offer voice mail, and they offer it for 8 years, and still no one uses it.

Somewhat similar to this, mobile providers send you a SMS with a list of missed calls (time + number) so if you have turned your mobile off, you'll get the list as soon as you turn your phone on.

Also if you cannot get someone on his mobile, you can send him a SMS, and it will be delivered once he gets reachable again.

Yeah, right...

[dwm]

...just like email killed faxes.

Context-sensitive advertising, of course

[Animaether]

*beeeeep*
*beeeeep*
*beeeeep*
"Hello, you have reached the voicemail of... BIKE HELMET ...to page this user now, press pound, or leave a message after the tone"
*biiiiip*
- "Hi honey! Hey, could you tell me what brand hemorrhoid cream you always get? You mentioned you were out and I'll be at the pharmacy later for my allergy medicine." ...

"You have... ONE ...new voice mail."
- "Hi honey! Hey, could you tell me what brand hemmorhoid cream... NEED PREPARATION? NOW AT WALGREENS - ONLY $4.95! ...you always get? You mentioned you were out and I'll be at the pharmacy... Trusted 0nline Pharmacy, ED pills save up to 80%. ViagraCialisLevita and more. CheapestPrice & 100% satisfaction guaranteed ...later for my allergy medicine... ALSO AT WALGREENS - ZYRTIC, 20 PROCENT OFF!."
"end of messages"

Yeah, not gonna happen, nobody would use it if that started happening. That said - trust Google not to store/parse your voicemail->text messages and use them to deliver targeted ads to you online / to your Account / etc.?

Singing voicemail

[Bohnanza]

I'm a songwriter, and sometimes I call to sing to my answering machine when I have an idea and I'm away from home. I sure hope that google thingy can write music...

Were you sleeping for the last 10 years?

[nitroyogi]

I've had Voice Mail activated for my mobile number from Airtel since 2000 in Delhi as well as Bangalore. Dunno about Vodafone, but I'm pretty sure Hutch (pre-Vodafone) had VM in their VAS offerings atleast since 2004. I've had many friends who had enabled it on their Hutch no:s.

Atleast 'try to' verify what you write.

Now, less than 0.1 percent of the huge Indian cellular subscriber base uses VM. Thats another point all together. But why bother to spend Rs. 3 per minute for an abstruse service when you can send an SMS for free (with most plans) or just leave a miss call (culturally de-facto method to ping the other cellular party in India). Business environment has different requirements. But in India so far I've very very rarely seen VM being used prominently. Email leads the way along with normal voice calls.

Re:It's also possibly a generational thing

[mark-t]

I know of no young person who checks their own voicemail, ever

I will assume from this statement that you know of no young people who may be trying to find a new job. Not checking voicemail can easily amount to a missed job opportunity, particularly if the employer is calling from his or her own cell that may have a blocked number and won't show up in your call display (which in my experience doesn't seem to be that infrequent).

No, it's not the end of Voicemail

[el_flynn]

Disclaimer: I work for a cellphone operator.

Ok, TFA has some valid points on the endless annoyance that we know as voicemail. But for mobile operators, at least, there's really no reason for them to kill this service.

And do you know why? Voicemail is considered, from a telco point of view, as a Call Completion Service. This allows the operator to generate revenue by forwarding a call that was destined for termination (B-party hung up, rejected etc) into a service that answers the call. At which point, they can charge the caller for this "previlege".

Let's say operator X has 100 million calls per month on its network where the called party has rejected the call or is unavailable. Assuming that:

* a chargeable block of 0.10 per minute
* everyone leaves a short message that's less than one minute long

The operator stands to make $10,000,000 a month in call completion revenue. By providing a simple voicemail service. Which no-one really cares about anyways. Of course, there'd be interconnect charges from other operators, but the gist is the same.

If voicemail was removed, the operator would lose this significant chunk of revenue, just because there was nothing to complete the calls. Which is why you'll never get existing operators who already provide voicemail removing it.

Voicemail == Call Completion == Cash Cow

Where I'm working, revenue from this call completion bit contributes around 20% of the monthly voice traffic revenue.

Another fun factoid: voicemail retrieval stands at 10% of those deposited.

Leaving voicemail is worse...

[meta-monkey]

Sure, we know checking voicemail is a pain in the ass, but leaving it is worse. I so much prefer text messages, especially for anything that's simple to ask or answer. "Wut time shud i pik u up?" As opposed to "ring....ring....ring....*click* Hey this is Susie, I'm not here right now, but if you'll leave me your name and number I'll give you a call back at my earliest convenience. Thanks and have a great day! *click* to page this user, press 7. To leave a callback number, press 5. To leave a voice message, press 1 or stay on the line." "Hi Susie, what time should I pick you up? Call me."

And yeah I know you can skip to the "leaving a message" part by pressing 1 but it's still annoying.