Tweet by phone. Now that caught my interest.
Voice on the Go is a new service that allows you to record a message and it accurately transcribes it into an email, a text message (SMS), or a Facebook or Twitter update. I purchased the $5.99 monthly option for this review and found it to be a fast and smooth setup. There are no long term contracts, and you can pay-per-month.
The benefit of speaking an email/SMS or any other written message is clear: You’ll save loads of time and get more done. Like me, you might be concerned about the accuracy of your voice to text. I’ve used other services and had terrible, embarrassing messages sent to my customers and prospects. Voice on the Go is different and extremely accurate. I spoke a bit slower, when testing it, to make sure, but after the first few I found myself speaking normally and getting equally good results. You also will avoid the incredibly dangerous temptation to text while driving.
The service also lets you listen to your emails. I find that most people today will leave a voicemail AND then send an email with more detail. If I can listen to my messages as well that adds to my daily productivity.
Voice on the Go can also be used to update your Facebook and Twitter accounts. Having in mind how many small business owners use Twitter and Facebook as a marketing tool to promote their business, this opportunity is worth trying. Voice on the Go can be used from any mobile, so even if your mobile is not a Blackberry or an iPod, you can still take advantage of the service.
My goal in all my reviews is to maintain some emotional detachment, to create a professional review, but man this sure is cool!! I have to admit that I was impressed and like a little kid testing the SMS portion to my friends and family who have probably now blocked my account…
What I liked about Voice on the Go:
- I was up and running in five minutes of setup.
- It lets me send an email AND sends me the voice file in .wav format. That’s great for tracking what you really said and serving for those who might use it for notes and idea capture.
- It lets you call in from any phone, but if not from your cell, you simply have to put your cell phone number in to identify your account. Allowing me to use it from a landline or Skype was a big plus. Saves cell minutes.
- Facebook updates were just as easy to setup and quick to remove, if you wanted to delete the access from Voice on the Go or from the Edit Applications area of Facebook. I liked that it worked both ways.
What could use improving?
- I couldn’t get the incoming email portion to work out of the gate with Gmail, but it could have been my settings.
- Sending a tweet to a person directly like @smallbiztrends didn’t work, but regular status updates worked fine.
- Tiny downside: The updates to Twitter or Facebook are not instant as they are on the web, but that seems reasonable to me. So, just give it a few minutes and be patient.
If you are on the road a lot and want to leave your computer off for a little while or don’t have time to find a wifi hotspot, this service is very useful. If you are addicted to social media, this is a good enabler when you can’t get to a keyboard. If you are simply tired of typing everything, then give this service a trial run, at $5.99 a month it is hard to beat.
It’s interesting how many new ways are now available for tweeting.. It is definitely advisable to utilize all of the available options. Thanks for sharing!
TJ: It is fascinating to read about all new gadgets coming out on the market!
I will show your post for a business person who is selling voice recognition software programs and other things related to taking notes. I bought my digital Pulse Smartpen from this vendor. The pen has a recording device so you could take notes on the special dotted paper and link your notes to the audio in real time. You then get help to remember the conversation by clicking on a specific part of your notes and an audio clip of the conversation from that time instance is replayed.
TJ, my big questions is “Will I really save enough time to justify the money?” A tweet isn’t very long.
Hey Robert,
I asked that question, too. If you are driving a lot and wanting to share thoughts and ideas, then it makes sense. Or, if you’re like some folks, you have, shall we say, larger fingers, then speaking your tweets makes sense. I used Jott for a long time and got quite hooked on calling in my thoughts and messages and then getting them as emails. Same principle with Voice-on-the-Go. I think for most folks, $6/month is negligible if you use it. That’s the question really — will you use it. I like having the option to dictate my ideas and get them as an email or send ideas to Twitter. It works with other services, too.
Thanks Robert.
Excellent post about Voice on the Go, great input! Seems like a really useful service, thanks for the heads up mate!
I use a service similar to this myself. It took a little getting used to speaking in “tweets”…especially since I am usually so long-winded 🙂
But now that I’m used to it, the service makes informal & social media communication pretty streamlined. Like you mentioned in the article, accuracy was a concern at first but it’s usually spot on these days.
Great post! Thanks
Voice on the Go is interesting service! like we have personal assistant while driving or somewhere no internet connection.
for my small business we just send the customers short voice messages to update some promotions or verification. The updates to Twitter or Facebook is really great ideal!! even have to take time just a few minutes.
Thank you for your post!
Sounds like an interesting app, I’m sure it’ll come in very handy. Sometimes when you’re say driving or generally on the go, it can be quite inconvenient to look down at your phone and start pushing away at the keys. With a voice-to-text app, you only need one hand to hold the device, you don’t have to look and it takes minimal concentration. So you can drive and send messages at the same time , or when you’re walking :). My only question would be, how accurate is it? I have MacSpeech Dictate on my Mac (equivalent to Dragon Naturally Speaking on the PC), and it takes a fair deal of training the software before it’s accurate enough to get something legible down in the form of text.
Voice on the go sounds like a good application, although i would want immidiate updates with twitter and facebook.
Thanks for the post!
Accuracy has improved to a point where this is a must have. Really saves time.
I would be very interested in a voice app that will record a message and transcribes it into an email or text message.
Immediate updates. I have used many voice apps and even 98% accuracy is a problem. I do wish you all the success. It is a very difficult technology.
I actually used this for awhile. But honestly over time I found it unreliable. For the average person it may work great, but for how much I wanted to use it I just couldn’t do it.
I would love to be able to voice update my Twitter and Facebook accounts. If the accuracy is there, i’m in!
mindy
I think that in theory it sounds great but when you try speech recognition it can sometimes be quite nerving, especially when you want to correct an error! Maybe here these problems where minimized! Then it will be a product that really rocks!
Voice on the go is one of the features that I really love in today’s technology advancements. It is easy and convenient and just like the name implies, even you are on the go you can still reply to your emails and messages especially those urgent ones.
It’s an interesting theory, but does talking really help productivity? I think many people can type as fast as they talk, when you combine many of the errors associated with speech recognition technology.
The only thing that I dont like about services like these is that people like myself that have an accent, it wont understand you well… but i guess thats not the service’s fault.
I’m looking for a good interactive intelligence app for my smartphone and this one sounds pretty good. I’m a real estate agent in Florida, and I can’t tell you how often I have to pull over to the side of the road to send or reply to an email on my blackberry. You mentioned that that Voice on the Go “is different” than the other voice command services or apps. What exactly makes it different? Thanks!
This does sound cool for the heavily ‘tech’ enabled among us.
Wish I had had the wonderful success with VOTG as the rest of you. When I attempted to set up it was very difficult and kept deleting my contacts when I tried to sync with Itunes. I had to visit AT&T twice to add my contacts back to my Iphone. Thank God I saved my old sim card or it could have gotten very ugly. Still not sure why it wouldn’t work for me but I will be cancelling VOTG today!
Hi TJ – Was just reading the Voice on the Go blog and they linked to your article so I wanted to check it out as well. I work for a personal injury law firm here in Houston, Texas and we’ve seen the number of injuries and cases involved texting while driving/distracted driving increase significantly. These new hands-free options, like VOTG, could be a great way to give people what they want, the ability to communicate while driving, in a much safer way.
Anyways, thanks for sharing! – Aly
If you don’t want to get pulled over by a cop for texting while driving, this service is definitely for you!