More than six months ago I pronounced that the phone call was dead.
I was wrong; it hasn’t died yet.
Now it seems that others are hopping off the voice 1.0 bandwagon and stating that the phone call’s little brother, voicemail, is dead. I don’t believe this to be true.
Voicemail is alive and doing well, actually quite well.
As of 10:30am this morning I have ten voicemail in my box (all from this morning). None of which I have listened to, nor do I know whom they are from.
The problem with proclamations such as the phone call is dead and that voicemail is dead is that these world views are so small and closed minded. What innovators and early adopters need to realize is that normal, regular, non-technology obsessed people (which makes up the bulk of the world) still think that the phone and voicemail is the coolest thing since sliced bread.
If you ask any VAR selling an IP based phone system what feature customers are most enamored with they will tell you, “voicemail to email.” If voicemail was really dead, this wouldn’t be true. For me personally, I prefer other, less disruptive forms of communication, but that doesn’t mean the masses does and at the end of the day, the masses dictate the vitality/death of a communications vehicle.
Maybe in the valley, or on the west coast voicemail is dead, but up here in the northeast and the other 90% of the world, the phone call is king and the voicemail is queen.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
funny that you bring this up now. earlier this morning i read this blog post (http://www.voip-weblog.com/50226711/dont_leave_me_a_message.php) by Dameon Welch-Abernathy stating how VoIP providers should bring vmail to text since vmail any other way is a waste of time.
@Brian
Funny how all of the people who denounce voicemail are so “pro video” which has to be the most intrusive of all forms of communication.
My (EXCELLENT) voip provider in Memphis has the option to send the voicemail as a .wav file attachment to email. I enjoyed that for a year. Now I forward my voip desk phone to my cell wherein the voicemail is transposed to text. The resultant text along with the wav file is now sent to me via email. Rarely do I listen to the file, and given the video option, I’d probably not take that either. Clicking an email and reading a transcribed voicemail is too easy. I can forward to people in the office if need be.
As our own schedules are increasingly taxed, the demand for asynchronous communication (ala voicemail>text) is going to continue to rise.
Being able to punch a few buttons, speak, and have my intended recipient get the message is sweet communications. Not all communications warrant a discussion. With the wave a generation preferring text over voice messaging, I’m confident we’ll see this evolve at a faster rate.
@Dave:
An excellent example of communications evolving rather than dying off completely. If you don’t mind me asking, who is the service provider that you are using?
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