The blue skies and green pastures of Ribbit Mobile are no longer, but if you can’t live without mobile voicemail to text, you can get it from SpinVox through uReach.
(Note the above image of the Ribbit Mobile home page was changed to grayscale by me)
Ribbit Mobile was a service for translating voicemail messages to text and delivering that text message with an audio file of the voicemail message, and those messages would be delivered by email and SMS. For myself, I have used similar services for over 4 years, and having the luxury of reading the text of a voicemail when you don’t have the opportunity to dial in to listen (e.g. when you’re in a meeting), not to mention the ready-access archive of messages, was priceless.
And that was just the case with Ribbit Mobile – they were not charging for “beta” this service for the 2+ years I used it. Near the end of last year I recall getting a survey from them on how much I would be willing to pay for the service. Then in January of this year I got an email saying Ribbit Mobile would be shutting down altogether the end of January, and there was no alternative. Ribbit itself as a company would still be around as they offer other services, like an Android app for voicemail and an add-on to Salesforce.com. The service was still running for a couple of weeks after the announced date, and went down altogether on February 16.
As I said, this was a type of service you could get used to. I also have a similar voicemail to text service through Vonage which I use for my business phone. Prior to Ribbit Mobile I was part of the SpinVox consumer beta program which I talked about previously here at The Hot Iron. Interestingly, around the time SpinVox announced they were dropping their B to C service (they power Vonage’s voicemail to text) Ribbit Mobile came on the scene, and I was able to switch over with very little time without this type of service.
In between SpinVox and Ribbit Mobile I briefly used SpinVox through uReach, a company offering virtual voice, email and office solutions used by many small businesses. When Ribbit Mobile went away, I looked into see if it was still offered, and it took a call to uReach to find the “hidden” URL for the service (they offer it, but it’s not linked from their main Web site), and by visiting ureach.com/spinvox one can sign up for the voicemail to text service for $9.99/month plus usage fees for large volumes of voicemail. The uReach offering is not as robust as Ribbit’s, and for some reason breaks up voicemails when sent by SMS into several messages of 30 second lengths. But you can still get an email with the message text and audio file attached.
Am I the only one who will miss Ribbit Mobile? Am I the only one who uses voicemail to text? Please let me know in this post’s comments, as I know nobody else personally who uses, and loves, this type of service.
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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni, Founder and President of Web consulting firm Dunkirk Systems, LLC.
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Mike,
There are many that miss Ribbit Mobile - none perhaps more than do I and my co-founders of Ribbit Corp. The product, never released to the general public, had many advanced features beyond transcription such as call screening, mid-call move, and routing of calls to PSTN and VoIP lines.
SimulScribe (PhoneTag as brand name) provided the transcription service for Ribbit. The PhoneTag retail product is still available to the general public. Wholesale transcription services are distributed under an exclusive reseller agreement with Ditech Networks. SimulScribe/Ditech provide both human and machine-based transcription services.
Spinvox, a human transcription service, was purchased by Nuance at the end of 2009. It’s not clear at all what Nuance is doing - or not doing - with Spinvox as spinvox.com resolves to nuance.com and a search for spinvox in the Nuance site search yields zero results. Yet, create.spinvox.com/ resolves to the old Spinvox developer page.
Good luck with your search for a Ribbit Mobile replacement. I know at least one of my co-founders has cobbled together Skype and Google Talk with mobile phone forwarding to create a half-baked Ribbit Mobile-like experience.
~Crick
Comment by
Crick
on 03/01/12 at 12:06 PM
Hi Crick:
Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts, and thank you for creating an excellent service in Ribbit Mobile! It’s reliability and simplicity made it a critical part of how I did business, namely as I never had to think about it. When it left, it was definitely a disruption, and I’ll settle for second best until something else comes around.
Before I wrote this I looked up SpinVox and found the same things you did. I had heard rumors and some public stories of the goings-on there, and we’ll see what comes (or goes) from it.
Good luck with your new venture and I look forward to seeing some amazing things coming from it!
mp/m
Comment by
Mike Maddaloni
on 03/02/12 at 07:28 AM
Perhaps I am a bit late to the party, but I would also like to offer another solution for a Ribbit replacement. A number of former Ribbiters have stumbled upon us and are very happy they did. In fact, I found this article as a result of a suggestion by one of them.
Evaluation trials and reviews are welcomed. http://www.talkscribe.com
Comment by
John Fabrega
on 04/24/12 at 11:51 AM
Hi John:
By no means are you late to the party, as I still see this party just getting started!
Thanks for passing along TalkScribe, and I will be trying the online demo, and may evaluate it anyway. Your pricing is in line with Spinvox’s via uReach, and I am curious on the entire UX of receiving a voice mail.
mp/m
Comment by
Mike Maddaloni
on 04/24/12 at 12:15 PM
I just ran across your article looking to see if perhaps there had been anything new for a Ribbit replacement. I too was a part of the Beta testing and frequently check their site to see if by chance they might make a come back.
I loved the service, not just the features you listed but also the ability to see missed calls even when my phone was off or had no reception. Being a big traveler often time I’m out of a service area or have to turn off my device and being able to see who called no matter what was a life saver.
I found their voicemail transcription to be one of the better if no the best around. It would be nice to see another free or low cost alternative and I’ve been looking but so far nothing has peaked my interest as much as Ribbit did.
Comment by
Richard Moody
on 09/12/12 at 06:04 PM
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