After all the discussion over the past few days about SpinVox as a company, we thought it would be a good time to talk more abot our technology and how it works. As one of our investors, Julie Meyer, pointed out only yesterday, we’re a breakthrough company…with a strong IP <http://juliemariemeyer.typepad.com/in_the_game_julie_meyer/2009/07/swinging-for-the-fences.html> , and as we’ve grown, we’ve tried to walk the line between getting people to understand that we believe we are on to something special with our technology, whilst also trying to maintain a level of protection for our IP and systems.

However, it seems that the interest we’ve built up in SpinVox over the past few years has now grown to such an extent that there is a real desire to know in detail about what’s under the bonnet.  So today, we’ve released a lot more information about our technology and our approach to creating the SpinVox VMCS – Voice Message Conversion System – and the amazing performance improvements it has delivered over the past couple of years.

So to begin with, did you know that VMCS already knows more than 99 per cent of anything a user is likely to say in English or Spanish? It contains over two billion words and phrases derived from the equivalent of 72 years of audio training – making it the world’s biggest body of spoken language. This knowledge system is growing rapidly and accelerating our ability to automate and improve accuracy levels. It is now so advanced that VCMS only requires two per cent of the Quality Control agent input it required two years ago. This means that to support millions of users we’ve reduced the system’s need down to just a few hundred per market, as our automation has taken over 98% of the task.

We’ll be talking more about the technology that powers SpinvVox over the next few days, so please keep coming back to read more.

Daniel Doulton, co-founder

_________________________________

Last week, on the same day that we launched the SpinVox Create API Programme in fact, this article appeared in the Fashion & Style section of The New York Times:

The piece itself is actually quite informative, compiling case study after case study and interview after interview with self-confessed ‘certified voicemail haters’ & ‘voicemail phobes’ alike. Some of the facts and figures presented as evidence (although not really that new to those of us here at SpinVox), are actually quite alarming:

“Research shows that people take longer to reply to voice messages than other types of communication [and also]  that over 30 percent of voice messages linger unheard for three days or longer [with] more than 20 percent of people with messages in their mailboxes “rarely even dial in” to check them”

Astonishing huh?

Since SpinVox was founded over five years ago, we’ve conducted all kinds of research into the phenomena of ‘the lost voicemail’, and found that it really is like some kind of twisted mailbox version of the Bermuda Triangle. No, really. Reading this piece on such a reputable publication as The New York Times only lends power to our elbow here at SpinVox HQ. The article goes on to say:

“By contrast, 91 percent of people under 30 respond to text messages within an hour, and they are four times more likely to respond to texts than to voice messages within minutes, according to a 2008 study for Sprint conducted by the Opinion Research Corporation. Even adults 30 and older are twice as likely to respond within minutes to a text than to a voice message, the study found.”

Twice as likely to respond to a text than to a voice message you say? That’s a pretty impressive stat which again, reinforces how bang on the money we are that voicemail to text really is one of those services that more people need in their lives. I’d go out on a limb and say that, within the next five years, listening to voicemail messages will be a thing of the past.

They say that sometimes seeing is believing, but in this case, I’d say seeing is actually hearing. So to answer the question posed by our friends at The NY Times;

“You’ve got voicemail, but do you care?”

SpinVox says: “Yes. We care.”

Addtional Reading:

Think before you SpinVox

Confidence in Communication

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As of 10am today (UK time) Skype users ALL OVER THE WORLD can have their voicemails converted into text via the magical wonder of SpinVox

WOOP WOOP!

So if you’ve got Skype, (and if you haven’t, why the hell not?)

Why not get Get SpinVox Voicemail too?!

I’ve just been handed a copy of the global press release so, if you’d like some of the more finer details, read on…

“SpinVox, the global leader in voice to content messaging and Skype, announces the availability of voicemail to text conversion for all Skype Voicemail users today. SpinVox conveniently converts voice messages to text in English, Spanish, French and German. The messages are then sent by Skype as an SMS text directly to a designated mobile phone for users to read.

Skype users can now benefit from instant ‘visible voicemail’, and never miss those important calls from friends or colleagues when they are away from Skype. Recipients of converted voicemail messages can listen to the full voice message by either signing into Skype or by calling their Skype To Go number . As well as being able to receive voicemail as text via SpinVox, Skype users may choose instead to receive voicemail notification via SMS or for free by email.

It’s easy for Skype users to set up voicemail to text from their account page, by simply registering a mobile phone number. Each voicemail to text conversion will cost €0.20/£0.17/$0.25 plus the cost of sending an SMS at standard low Skype rates. Additional SMS charges – a maximum of 3 – may apply depending on the length of the voicemail message.

All payments are made fuss-free through Skype Credit. Users have a choice to set a limit on the number of voicemail conversions received per day and to receive messages from people only in their contact list to help them manage their Skype credit. An email notification will be sent if that limit is exceeded. For more information please visit http://www.skype.com/go/voicemail-to-text.”

Awesomeness!

We’ve been working on this deal with Skype for some time now and it’s great to finally help bring SpinVox Voicemail to the masses upon masses of Skype users all over the world!

Skype have just hit publish on their blog too…  So, as I said at the start…

Skype Me Up Baby!

Good day to you fellow SpinVoxers…

My good friend and buddy Steve Lamb – aka @actionlamb – and I were talking SpinVox on Twitter today when he prompted the idea for this blog post…

- Just do it -

SpinVox, as some of you may or may not know, has many many uses/applications… Aside from the multitude of services that we offer, there is an abundance of ways that these can be utilized…

Case in point – I often use SpinVox Memo for taking notes and/or recording content for my personal blog as you can see here. However, how I use it is not important – at least, I don’t think so.

The interesting stuff is in how YOU use SpinVox. I took the liberty of casting the question out over Twitter not too long after the above conversation with Steve took place and well, here are some of the responses:

That last one is an interesting one re: Evernote. I’ve asked @loudmouthman to see if he wouldn’t mind expanding on those thoughts and maybe writing a guest post for Big Talk.

Watch this space… In the meantime: How do you use yours?!

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If you haven’t heard, The London Social Media Cafe – aka The Tuttle Club – is now held at The Institute of Contemporary Arts every Friday morning from 10am through ’til 1pm.

SpinVox has been friends with The Tuttle Club since way back in May last year when we all sat down and chewed the fat around and about The Future of Voice…

So if ever you want to come say “Hi” and maybe learn a little bit about SpinVox, what we do and where/how we do it etc… Why not come on down?

You can find us there most weeks (check the Wiki to make sure). We’re the quiet ones in the corner, beavering away into our laptops and giving out the odd SpinVox goodie or too…

- Image c/o Lloyd Davis, Proprietor of Tuttle -

Come have a coffee and a biscuit, we don’t bite

You should thank your lucky stars you’re not hanging out with these guys!

That photo up there is taken from SouthPole2009, an expedition that set off on Boxing Day last year (only a couple of weeks ago now) which will see Matt Gaskill, 18, become the youngest person to have ever completed the journey!

And also, (in what is in fact yet another first), friends, family and supporters and of course, you too dear readers, will be able to follow Matt and Kevin Gaskell’s month-long progress via their blog at http://www.southpole2009.com. The blog features live updates from the team made using their awesome, gadget-tastic satellite phone – the only device with which they will be able to communicate with the outside world in the remote, frozen Antarctic…

That’s right, SPOKEN BLOG POSTS FROM THE SOUTH POLE!

Awesome.

There’s actually a very good reason as to why these two are undertaking such a harsh trip…  and we caught up with the Gaskills just before Christmas to find out more:

You can track the team’s progress over at http://www.southpole2009.com/

GOOD LUCK GUYS!

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Recently, me and a couple of the guys here at SV HQ started thinking about Visual Voicemail on the iPhone.
Y’all know what Visual Voicemail is right?

That funky little feature that everyone raved about when it was first announced etc?
Yeah, that.

So we were talking about that and started to really unpick the whole idea behind it.
First of all, for the record:

I am not an iPhone user (shh!)

Which means that a lot of what I started kicking around was simply theory…
(at first anyway – but we’ll come to that later).

I do know mobile though and Visual Voicemail, as a proposition, is awesome –

I know this, several million iPhone users know this BUT our users are still opting out of using Visual Voicemail fantastic service and choosing SpinVox instead.

So this begs the question why?
I thought on this some more…

If visual voicemail *shows* you your mail – to me, it’s like having your post delivered to your doorstep. Literally.
Let me show you what I mean -

Closed envelopes fall into your inbox and you choose which ones you wish to open (and listen to) first.
Like so…

– Visual Voicemail –

And keeping with this old school mail analogy, SpinVox on the other hand shows you the contents of your post.
The envelopes arrive as letters and you can READ them.
Making your Voicemail visible: Ergo – Visible Voicemail.

- Visible Voicemail -

I suppose you could call it some kind of new naming convention we’re bandying around internally, but there’s only so much navel-gazing we can do before it gets opened out –
…If proved however, we could probably get a lot of mileage out of it
Your thoughts are very welcome.

We DELIVER Voicemail.

Whereas traditional voicemail is left in a box for you to go and retrieve/listen to.
Visual Voicemail allows you to see the post/mail in the box, and then you choose which to retrieve/listen to.
Visible Voicemail – SpinVox – DELIVERS the Voicemail direct to you, ready to read and with no retrieval necessary.

I mentioned earlier that this was merely theory and that it needed proving, what with me not being an iPhone user… well, it’d kinda help.

So – what do you think? Do you have an iPhone? Do you use SpinVox? I would love to see/read/hear your thoughts… I’m already lucky enough to get some opinions etc..

A couple of weeks back I was able to share these thoughts with some iPhone-owning, SpinVox using friends..

Here’s what they had to say:

“…I would say visual voicemail is and was really only aimed at North Americans who love to talk but only recently learnt how to text.

In Europe we now live in a text world so if there was any service Apple should have launched with the iphone it should have been a cloud app like SV.

Visual voicemail is really not visual in any real sense of the word at all since the content of the mail remains locked inside an envelope on the iphone’s screen.

It’s as useless as not seeing the list of voicemails at all…”

– Mike Butcher, TechCrunch UK

———————————–

“…I think you hit the nail on the head.
The two main benefits over visual voicemail for me are:

a) As you said, the fact that I can immediately see the contents of a message rather than having to take the time to call a number or even click a button (as the iphone shows texts on the home screen before you’ve even clicked to see them).

b) Secondly, with visual voicemail, there’s no way to save the contents of the message in text format (therefore searchable) for ever. There are details of people (both friends & clients) that I have recovered thanks to that and so it’s undeniably invaluable to me…”

– Zee @ We Do Creative:

———————————–

“I have my Spinvox voicemail come through to my MobileMe email address. This way I can receive voicemail notifications instantly (push email) but still have them accessible on my laptop (unlike SMS).

So, in a visual voicemail style, I browse my Spinvox voicemail using the iPhone’s email client. The only difference is, I don’t have to listen to them in order to receive the message.”

– Simon Maddox

———————————–

“It means the power / imperative / control of managing voicemail is in my hands – not in the hands of my MNO (am I in coverage to make the call?) or the person calling (I have forced you to dial in and listen to my message).

Having used SV for a year, I now cringe when leaving VM for others – I feel like I’m imposing on their time, making them check my message. I now don’t leave VM on mobiles – If it goes to VM, I send an SMS instead…”

– Mike @ INQ Mobile

———————————–

“…the convenience that comes from just getting a text from that person with the contents of the message is still way too much to overlook. I love being able to just look at a text message that tells me what the person said and respond with a text. People are more likely these days to return a text message promptly than a voicemail message.”

– Mark Burstiner

———————————–

So – what do you think?

Leave a comment,
Write a post yourself,
Email me: james dot whatley at spinvox dot com
Or even call and SpinVox me a message +447825798998

Looking forward to your feedback – fingers crossed there’ll be enough to do a follow up post next week.

Cheers,

James.

At last! It’s FRIDAY!

Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

And yes, you’re back here again to see some more action from our friends at Fur TV. Here we have the fifth and final video from Lapeno and the boys… This time answering that age old question:

Do Condoms Reduce Sensitivity?

The Staying-Alive Foundation has been Telling it like it is for ten years now..

And it’s about time you got involved with Telling it Like it is too.
Pick up the phone (numbers below) and tell the Fur TV boys one of your stories.

Your voice will be converted into text and posted up on the Telling it like it is blog.

UK : 0151 266 7700
US: 1513 729 6417
Canada: 1416 628 8501
Spain: 3493 184 2078
Germany: 4921 123 7061072
France: 3317 666 0863
Ireland: 3531 657 1891

This is the last time we’re going to publish these numbers so we’d really REALLY like you to pick up the phone and take part.. Make your voice count.

(I’m going over to the blog now to read up on what’s been said so far)

hehe..

Happy Thursday Folks, if you’re back here today to see another Fur TV video then you will not be disappointed!

If this is your first time here, where have you beeeeeeeeeeeen?! What have you been doing!?

Get yourself off and read last week’s post and start from there… THEN work your way back through the blog and see the other videos… and THEN take look at today’s effort..

…which is below by the way

Watched it? Liked it?

Well it’s about time you got involved with Telling it Like it is
Pick up the phone (numbers below) and tell the Fur TV boys one of your stories.

Your voice will be converted into text and posted up on the Telling it like it is blog.

UK : 0151 266 7700
US: 1513 729 6417
Canada: 1416 628 8501
Spain: 3493 184 2078
Germany: 4921 123 7061072
France: 3317 666 0863
Ireland: 3531 657 1891

Go on, give it a go..

Day Two of Fur TV fun here on Big Talk – want detail? See last week’s post, but the important thing to know is that these guys are here to Tell it Like it is…

Ideally, we really want YOU to tell us like it is, but first – before you do that – watch this educational video from Lapeno and the gang and find out a little bit more about Unsafe Sex.
Clue: It ain’t good.

Go on, give it a go..
(numbers are after the vid!)

UK : 0151 266 7700
US: 1513 729 6417
Canada: 1416 628 8501
Spain: 3493 184 2078
Germany: 4921 123 7061072
France: 3317 666 0863
Ireland: 3531 657 1891

Call now and tell your embarrassing moment…
Your voice will be converted into text and posted up on the Telling it like it is blog.

(anonymously of course)