voicemail

If you're so addicted to America's celebrity culture that you'd love to have a famous voice answer your cell phone, then Alltel has an answer (of sorts) for you. Today the carrier announced its new Voicemail Max program, which will enable customers to personalize their outgoing voice-mail greetings with the voices of actors, comedians, celebrity impersonators, and musical artists. Among the available content is voice clips from such luminaries as Larry the Cable Guy, Steve Harvey, Orlando Jones, T.I., and popular voices from the cast of Reno 911!. Though that's not the most A-list list … Read more

Note: This product was updated on December 7, 2007 to include descriptions of the full software feature set.

I'll come right out and say it. The biggest problem with my first experience with YouMail may have been my own human error, or bad timing. The biggest problem with my second experience is a controversial capability I tackle later on in the review--so keep reading!

In my original review of the voice mail system that lets you manage voice messages online, I said YouMail had a lot of potential, but wasn't delivering on its promise of catching my voice mail messages. It could be that I skipped a beat, and missed punching the crucial star (*) key when entering YouMail's phone number into the Motorola Razr V3 handset I tested with. Or, offers YouMail's PR representative Derek Brookmeyer, I may have actually done this as the signal cut out, in which case YouMail would not have completed my voice mail forwarding, and Verizon would not have warned me the action was unsuccessful.

So now, the complete review:

YouMail's concept fits snugly into the intersection of two meta trends--personalized greetings (such as Vringo) and online mobile management (such as Dashwire). However, since you program YouMail to take over native voice mail duties, it involves a lengthier time investment up front.… Read more

VoIP and telephony service babyTEL is launching a new Facebook application this morning called Telephone that gives you access to a phone and answering machine without leaving Facebook. Instead of going the embedded route, like YackPack, babyTEL instead relies on a small Java runtime that sits in your computer's taskbar, or the dock if you're on Mac OS X. Once you fire it up, there's a simple authentication process to pull up your list of friends on the social networking service, and allow you to call them for free--assuming you have a headset or speakers and a … Read more

I am in favor of any tool that saves me from listening to voicemail on a phone. I use CallWave (review) on my cellular line to shunt voice mails to my e-mail, and I've been using GotVoice (review) on my home phone for the same purpose. GotVoice, to date, has been a bit of a hack: It got your voice mails by dialing up your voice mail, just as you did, and then entering the right touch tones so your messages would play, which it then recorded and sent to you. Pure replacement voice-mail systems (like CallWave, SpinVox, and … Read more

I've gushed already about CallWave, the free cellular voice mail replacement service. Today the service got even better--the company has just taken the wraps off Vtxt, its automated speech-to-text service.

Vtxt converts voice mail into text. When someone leaves you a message, the service e-mails or SMSes you the transcription. The conversion is far from perfect, but more than good enough to get the gist of the message. You'll still have to listen to the recording to get the message's full meaning and nuance, but with Vtxt you can very quickly scan your voice mails to find … Read more

Universal phone service company Grand Central (review) released last night a version of its browser-based control panel designed for mobile phones. It gives you access to your Grand Central voice mail and can connect you to people in your Grand Central address book as well.

Grand Central does its magic via the Web, not through a downloadable app on your phone, which makes the service a bit of a hack on a mobile. When you want to play a voice mail, you have to download an MP3, which on all the phones I know of will bring up a separate … Read more

Let it be known that Crave is always looking out for your communication needs. Last week, you may recall, we offered up the "Memo Motion Sensor," which automatically plays a message to anyone who walks into your office at work. But as fond as we are of this idea, it's not the most practical for most households.

So to leave messages for your loved ones at home, we suggest something like the "Message Magnet," a simple but effective way to leave the equivalent of a 10-second voicemail for up to six individual recipients (or all … Read more

I've been using the GotVoice (review) voicemail retrieval service for almost a year, and for the most part I've been happy with it. The free system retrieves voicemails that go to my home phone's message box and sends me e-mail links to them. Handy. On Monday, the company is releasing a major update to the service that fixes a few usability snags and adds outbound message utilities.

Current users should like the new interface. It's easier to use, and there's finally a "delete" button on each individual message.

The real action is on … Read more

Like so many mobile trends, GetaBuz has its genesis in the creativity of teenagers.

GetaBuz licenses hit songs from major record labels and allows users to record personalized voice mail greetings and messages over the song, which cost $1 to $3 each.

It's a smoother way of doing what teens had already figured out--they wanted to send clips of songs to their friends from their mobile phones, Buz Interactive Co-founder Steve Ehrlich told me.

I got a quick demo, and the interface is pretty smooth. Just choose a song and record a message--up to 30 seconds--with any microphone. No … Read more