There comes a time when you introduce something remarkable in to your business or life that you almost don’t realize it is even there. For me, that is SpinVox, a service which transcribes voicemail to text.

I started using SpinVox in January, and here it August. I was setup with an account by James Whatley, SpinVox’s Head of Digital & Social Media Strategy, whom I met at the Nokia OpenLab last year in Helsinki. The service is tied to my mobile voicemail, and as it worked so well I added it to my Vonage account, which they refer to it as Visual Voicemail. Since then it has been such a vital tool for me, I almost forgot life without it.

How It Works

SpinVox replaces your mobile carrier’s own voicemail system, in my case T-Mobile. This is achieved by forwarding all calls that do not answer to numbers tied to the SpinVox system. When someone leaves me a voicemail, I get both an email and a SMS (or text message as we call it in the US). Each has the transcribed text of the voicemail plus numbers to call to listen and reply to the message. For my Vonage line, it was simply adding the service, and the regular emails and SMSs I received now have the text of the message.

So how well does it transcribe it? Not bad! Common words come through without missing a beat. Names and not-so common words come through pretty well, and if it cannot translate it exactly, it does it phonetically and even puts a question mark next to it. For example, my last name, Maddaloni, is usually spelled out phonetically. All in all I rarely have to listen to a message to understand it, but if I want to I can. The delivery of messages is not instantaneously as compared to traditional voicemail, but it usually arrives within a few minutes.

Why It Works

You may be asking, as I did originally, so what? There are 2 benefits to SpinVox that made me a true believer. The first is the ability to read a voicemail message when you don’t have the ability to listen to it. In the middle of a meeting, calls get translated to text and you can get the gist of it without putting the device to your ear. Many times a return email or SMS to the caller will do the trick. A second and equal benefit is the ability to file and store transcriptions of voicemails. This is huge, as many times project details are communicated by voicemail, and now you have a written record that can be stored in email archives or in other digital files.

Another feature of SpinVox is Memo. This is where you can speak a message to yourself and it is delivered in an email message to you. I find myself using this when I am out for a walk and ideas come to me, and I don’t have – or want – paper and a pen.

Reading voicemail is a great convenience in today’s multitasking world, and SpinVox makes it easy. It is available through several carriers, such as Vonage, Skype and Verizon in the US and Rogers in Canada. If you are not on these carriers you can get it as an add-on through uReach. On the uReach or SpinVox sites you can try it for yourself to see how well it translates your voice, which for me at least was an experience the first time I saw it.

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Mobile Technology • Technology • (3) Comments • Permalink

Word came this week that tr.im a free URL shortening service, is shutting down. When I saw that I started writing a blog post in my head about such a shutdown of such a service. But by the time I got to my computer to write it, the word had changed, that tr.im was to resume service. You can read more about it on their Web site and blog. If you do read their messages, they say that people won’t pay for such a service, and now that they are not the preferred short URL service built into Twitter, they did not see a point in continuing.

My response to this is yes and no. Do people want to pay for something they get for free? It depends. People pay for water and music all the time now, and the reason is anything from the perceived value-add to simply controlling your own destiny. There are some people that won’t pay for anything, and with the plethora of free short URL services out there, why pay one when you can get the same for free elsewhere?

Short URLs live outside of Twitter and social media services. I frequently get emails with shortened URLs. These links live on longer and are more useful due to being carried in a different medium. As the life of a tweet or status update, though it technically can be forever, is short and links are more useful when in an email or posted on a Web site or in an email.

I see this as an evolving service. Initially, services like Dunkirk Systems, LLC’s own psURL, a private, customizable short URL service, will have a small market for either individuals or more than likely larger companies to manage content and information. Going forward, short URL functionality will be built into most open-source and commercial publishing software and content management services. The demand will remain, but the way it is executed will change.

So what do you think? Will there continue to be demand for short URLs and services converting them?

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Don’t be like Rod Blagojevich.

You’re probably wondering why I am suggesting this, to not be like the impeached and shamed former governor of Illinois. But I am not talking about the corrupt way he ran the Land of Lincoln, rather I am warning about the missed opportunity when the domain name for his new Web site was registered.

It was announced over this past weekend that Blago had a new Web site at GovernorRod.com. Note I provide the link but I also advise caution in clicking over to it, especially for those whose morals are on the high end, but I digress. When I heard the Web site URL, the first thing that popped into my mind, as a domain name consultant and someone who thinks about domain names more than I should, is if he – or his PR people – bought the common misspelling of the domain name, governorod.com, which only has one “r” in it. As I am writing this, you can guess they did not.

Many domain names are the combination of words or names. When you have one of those words ending with the same letter as the next word begins with, it is common for someone manually typing the domain name to type that letter only once. For example, if the world’s largest software company got into the business of making salt-water candy, they may register the domain name microsofttaffy.com. It is recommended they also register microsoftaffy.com, and it can be also taken further to account for the double “f” in taffy as well.

What often happens is if you don’t register the domain name, someone else may. It is one thing if your name contains trademarked words or names, but if it contains generic names or words and is not trademarkable, a competitor may jump on it and potentially take some of your business. As I have said many times, in the grand scheme of things, domain names are cheap – register them all and monitor traffic to them.

In the case of the narcissistic former governor, I checked to see if governorod.com was registered the morning after the announcement, and it was not. This meant I had the opportunity to register it myself, but as I am glad he is out of office, I was not interested in going there! I was not alone in my thinking though, as several hours later someone else registered the domain name, and it is now pointing to a parked domain Web page. There may be a case here for the indicted former politician and his handlers to win this domain name in a UDRP filing, but that will surely cost a heck of a lot more than registering the domain name new. As Blago is rumored to already be in debt for his legal issues to date, he may not be afford to file for the domain name as well as maintain his hair-do.

Registering misspellings of domain names is almost as important as registering the actual domain name, especially if it is prone to errors. And in case it isn’t blatantly obvious to you, I am proud to say I never, ever thought for a moment of voting for this guy to lead the state where I live.

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Domain Names • Technology • (4) Comments • Permalink

Welcome to the land of Misfit Profiles – a place where profiles for social media sites go to languish when somebody uses their work email as their only profile email address, and then leave that employer, never to regain that profile again!

The other day I was browsing my LinkedIn connections and found some odd profiles. There were some people who had 2 profiles – one only complete to a certain point, and another complete up to now. When I looked at one colleague’s incomplete profile, it had an email address on it from his previous employer. Where there is a way of combining 2 LinkedIn accounts my guess is for most people they just abandon the old account and start anew. When I looked at the more current profile for my colleague, it had the email address of his current employer.

Most social media sites use email addresses to authenticate a person. If you use a work address – or any email address that you give up at some point – you may lose access to your account. This is why I continue to advocate using your own domain name for your personal email. I take this a step forward by advocating using your own email address with your own domain name for social media sites. If you change jobs or Internet providers, you don’t have to go through hoops to regain your account. That is, if the social media site even has hoops for you to go through.

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Domain Names • Technology • (3) Comments • Permalink

I just registered for – and paid for – TECH cocktail 11 on Thursday, August 6, 2009 at John Barleycorn in Chicago’s Wrigleyville section. Note I highlighted “paid for” as this had up to now been a free event. When I went to register I didn’t realize it was no longer complimentary admission.

And you know what I say to that? It’s about time!

TECH cocktail (TC) is where I have met many people I consider everything from friends to colleagues in Chicago. It brought out the best of the city’s tech and creative communities. As word got out of their success – not to mention open bar – they got more and more crowded. It has been harder to have conversations with people, let alone get to the tables of the presenters and sponsors. By charging a nominal amount and no longer having an open bar (you get 2 drink tickets with admission) I am sure it will keep away some people, and my gut feeling is those are people you would want to keep away! All things considered, I have no doubts TC will still be a lively and successful event.

Will I see you on the 6th?

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