Messaging News - October 2008 - (Page 32)

ON MESSAGE Jott to Amazon, Google Calendar, Twitter, Backpack and others. While Google provides mobile Web and SMS interfaces to Google Calendar, Jott allows individuals to create appointments using only voice commands. As another example, you could call Jott while you were shopping, put in a request to Amazon via Jott about a product and Jott would then send you an email with the top five results from Amazon. Jott can be used to post to a number of popular weblog systems such as Wordpress, Movable Type, TypePad and Blogger using only voice commands. Jott is also capable of subscribing to RSS feeds and reading them back via text to speech, which leads to some very significant capabilities. It is possible to use Jott feed functionality, to listen to a summary of new messages in Gmail, to follow status updates on Facebook or Twitter, or to read headlines from a number of news sites and blogs. reQall also produces RSS feeds so services such as Google Calendar I often find myself in situations where I am not near a computer and I do not want to stop what I am doing to peck out a note to myself on my mobile phone keypad. Jott, reQall and SpinVox all offer a way to simply call a number and leave a note to myself that will be transcribed and available next time I want to check my email, typically within five minutes or less. In all cases, the transcription quality is highly dependent on the audio quality of the call, so calls with high levels of ambient noise will result in less satisfactory results. Jott is based in the United States. reQall’s parent company is India, although it has offices in the U.S. and Hong Kong. SpinVox is a U.K.-based company. When Jott was formally released, the service moved to tiered payment model with a free ad supported plan, a $4 USD monthly basic plan and a $13 USD month professional plan. Certain features such as messaging and connections to Jott, reQall and SpinVox all offer a way to simply call a number and leave a note to myself that will be transcribed and available next time I want to check my email, typically within five minutes or less. and Jaiku can also act on data created in reQall. SpinVox has the ability to post to a number of popular blog systems, social network services, and microblog services such as Twitter. Synchronization With Mobile and Desktop Clients Jott developed a number of applications to synchronize data from Jott to desktop and mobile devices. Jott has Outlook integration with support for both email and tasks within Outlook in addition to notes and calendaring. This means it is possible to add an item to your Outlook calendar or create an email draft with only a phone call. The Blackberry Jott application also supports integration with email, although you have to select the message on the Blackberry in order to respond to it with voice. Jott’s iPhone application allows users to record voice notes and automatically transfers them over the data network without using airtime. In addition the iPhone application allows users to manage notes and lists stored on Jott’s servers but not other features such as reminders, messaging, or links to other services. Jott Express is an Adobe Air-based desktop application that allows users to directly manage notes, lists and reminders that are automatically synchronized with the Jott services, as well as other Jott applications such as the iPhone. This array of applications contributes substantial functionality to Jott’s service although, I found myself wishing I could synchronize the address book data rather than just import. reQall has created applications for Windows desktop machines, Windows mobile devices, the iPhone, Blackberry, a plugin for Firefox and a Google Gadget. reQall’s iPhone application provides a full compliment of functionality with the exception of photographic reminders. In addition to the applications and voice commands users may interact with reQall via text messages, email, the Web, and instant messenger (AIM, Yahoo!, Google Talk/Jabber). In addition, reQall provides RSS and a variety of popular calendar feeds as output. external productivity tools, the Blackberry application, and longer recording length are limited to the professional plan. The desktop tools plan is limited to the basic plan. All of reQall’s functionality is currently free, although they may charge in the future. SpinVox has a variety of pricing plans for its voicemail services, but all other portions of the service are currently free although some are limited to certain carriers and they may charge for these services in the future. The SpinVox voicemail service is handled by uReach in the U.S. and costs $10 USD a month for 40 voicemail message transcriptions. Jott, reQall and SpinVox each have overlapping functionality, as well as unique features and different price points. Each of the services is simple to configure initially and is either free or low-cost to test. Jott has month-tomonth and pay-as-you-go options. reQall is free. Many of SpinVox’s services are currently free including a free voicemail trial. BG/TMP FOR YOUR REFERENCE Jott http://jott.com reQall www.reqall.com SpinVox www.spinvox.com uReach Technologies www.ureach.com 32 MESSAGING NEWS OCTOBER 2008 http://jott.com http://www.reqall.com http://www.spinvox.com http://www.ureach.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Messaging News - October 2008

Messaging News - October 2008 Contents Editor’s Note Short Takes Targeting the Technology-Wise Customer The Insider Threat: The New Era of Disaster Recovery Making Collaboration Tools Pro-Knowledge Sharing Botnets Go Marching On Dissecting Email Forensics Next in Messaging News “On Message” with Ben Gross The World is Not the Center of the Universe, and Filters Don’t Stop Email Spam Making the Case Learn More

Messaging News - October 2008

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