Visual Voicemail with Transciptions from PhoneTag; Extended Trial for BGR Readers
Earlier this month we told you about a great service from a company called PhoneTag. Competing with the likes of SpinVox Voicemail-to-Text and GotVoice G2 Voicemail-to-Text, PhoneTag provides a service that converts your voicemails to text and delivers them to your handset. No longer do you need to dial into a voicemail system to listen to your voicemails; just read them! We like that there are several companies offering this service as competition is rarely a bad thing for the consumer. Amidst it all however, there is something special that sets PhoneTag apart from the pack: SimulSays. SimulSays is PhoneTag’s beta application for BlackBerry and Windows Mobile that combines that best of both worlds - think iPhone Visual Voicemail with integrated voicemail transcriptions! You see a list of all of your calls and associated voicemail audio files are automatically downloaded to the phone. The list however, also includes the first line of each voicemail transcription. Select any message in the list and you’ll be brought to a screen with the full transcription and a player that will allow you to listen to the message if you so chose. Yep, best of both worlds! SimulSays is free for PhoneTag customers and the pricing breaks down like this:
- Tag per message: $0.35/message
- Tag40 (40 transcriptions/month): $9.95
- TagUnlimited (unlimited transcriptions/month): $29.95
PhoneTag offers a free 7 day trial to make sure you’re game before you start paying, but wait! BGR readers can have a special extended 30 day trial period so that there’s absolutely no doubt before you start forking over that hard-earned cash. To get the party started just hit the read link below and sign up. Then from your mobile browser, go to mobile.simulsays.com to download the latest beta and you’re good. Note that PhoneTag can be used with any handset while the SimulSays beta app is limited to the Blackberry Curve (AT&T), 8800 (AT&T or T-Mobile), Pearl (AT&T or T-Mobile) and any Windows Mobile Smartphone.
Tags: BlackBerry, PhoneTag, SimulSays, SimulScribe, transcription, voicemail, voicemail to text, Windows Mobile
LOL at the fact that everybody in the North drinks Poland Springs. That water is the shiz.
Permalink | Reply
Not LOL at the fact that it costs $0.40 a message to transcribe for the $10 cost? it’s a good service and if they did something more reasonable I’d get the transcription plan, but for most people who have a bb, you’re paying at least 70. Close to half your bill for a little service just doesn’t make economical sense.
Permalink | Reply
I work for PhoneTag - SimulSays now works on all BlackBerry models 8700 and up.
Permalink | Reply
Pouya, Not sure what kind of calculator you’re using - last I checked 40 messages for $9.95 comes out to less than $0.25 per message. One missed call a month while you’re in a meeting could be a lot more costly. I work for PhoneTag BTW.
Permalink | Reply
Hey Zach, just a correction: the linked article is from 2007, so its a bit over a year old. Also, SimulSays is a different product from from what you stated. It is a free product you can get at simulsays.com that is the same as PhoneTag but does not have transcription enabled. The version with transcription, Simulscribe, has be renamed PhoneTag.
Permalink | Reply
@Dave - you’re right. That was some shoddy math on my part. In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll say that I use the Simulsays service now, and I generally like it for the visual voicemail, but there are still a lot of glitches that make the product inconsistent and thus not worth the actually money of paying for transcription portion.
That’s what I still stand by my point that the price is too high. Your two plans are essentially ’small’ and ’supersized’, but there’s nothing in between that would fit the middle. Further, the inconsistency in the connection to the service to actually receive the VM as well as the various inaccuracies of when they are transcribed makes it not worth the money. If it’s only picking up the 50% of the words accurately in the message, and randomly can’t connect (without alerting you to its ails) to receive the messages then it doesn’t seem worth the risk of paying for.
I do really like the visual voicemail your company has brought forward, and I hope it can get better, and I would love to support it financially, but there are a variety of issues that just haven’t made it a reasonable expense. I can speak for myself and two others I’ve referred to your service, and those are their gripes as well, for what it’s worth. Which is a little less than $0.25…
Permalink | Reply
Pouya, We are always looking to improve our service, which is how SimulSays came about in the first place. We have recently added contact book integration to the service which correctly spells the caller’s name. Also, we have a referral program for people who love the service, but don’t want to pay for it. Every PhoneTag customer has a unique link that they can give out to anyone they think would benefit from the service. The link gives both the existing user and the new user 30 days of free service. Sign up twelve friends and the service is free for you for an entire year.
Permalink | Reply
If you want to try out this feature, try YouMail
(http://www.youmail.com).
I love this voicemail service and I have never had a problem with them, either reliability or customer service issues.
They now provide voicemail transcription for free and it is about 95% accurate, even on my friends that don’t always speak clearly when they leave me a message.
There is also a visual voicemail interface for the web, both desktop and mobile versions.
I know this isn’t an app, like the one listed above, but I find the service great.
Permalink | Reply