The great thing about email is that it’s very easy to drop an e-mail to someone, knowing that they can pick it up at their leisure and respond at their leisure. Unlike the phone, you don’t both have to stop what you’re doing in order to make and take the call at the same time.
But the problem with e-mail is that you had to be sitting at the computer to type out the text of your message and then to send it. There have been times when I have been on my way to work or just out and about without access to a computer — and certainly with no possibility of sitting down and typing a detailed message — when I have remembered that I need to contact someone to tell them some particular information. I could phone them using my mobile phone but it would typically be that time of day or evening when they would be either busy at work, in a meeting or in bed asleep — or it’s the kind of message that doesn’t really warrant my interrupting them in the middle of what they are doing. So I usually say to myself, “I must remember to e-mail them when I get home/ to work when I’ll be at a computer.” And, often, I would forget to do it!
Wouldn’t it be useful if we had a voicemail line where it worked like email? You could send them a quick voice-email that they could pick up at their leisure and responds to at their leisure. It would be handy in situations where you wanted to send them a message on the fly while you are hurrying along — and you didn’t need to specifically interrupt them with a phone call. Or if you find texting fiddly or if your message is going to be longer than 160 characters. Or you’re not very good at typing and the whole process of typing a detailed message is very laborious.
There are a couple of ways that I have discovered that can help in this kind of situation. They are Jaxtr and Dial2do, which are online applications that interface with your mobile phone - and land line, too. I will look at them in separate blog posts over the next couple of weeks. They each work in different ways and offer different functions.
First, Jaxtr.
This is primarily an online interface that allows you to make cheap international calls from one of around 50 listed countries, including USA, UK, Malaysia, Australia and many European and Asian countries. You can signup for a free account which has an online voicemail function. If you want to make cheap calls or receive calls that can be forwarded to your landline or mobile phone, you need to register your phone and buy credit - but to receive calls to the Jaxtr voicemail can be done with the free account.
You will be alerted when you receive a voicemail by an automatically generated e-mail from Jaxtr so you can login to your account online and listen to the message. One of the advantages of a Jaxtr account is that people in other countries can call you at rates local to them. So your friends or family abroad can send you a voicemail from their phones at cheap local rates whatever time of day or night, wherever they are, without worrying about time zone differences or needing to be at computer.
The other cool thing is that you can put a Jaxtr widget on your blog or website which people can click on to initiate a call from their phone. They type in their telephone number and Jaxtr calls their phone to connect it to your voicemail line. The first call is free and then Jaxtr gives them a local number to call for subsequent calls. If they have an all inclusive package on their mobile phone or their home phone has free minutes, those subsequent calls will essentially be free for them to make.
One downside for some may be that you have to go online and listen to the messages online so you will need a broadband connection that can comfortably support audio streaming and a computer with a sound card. Another might be that while the caller may leave the message for you while they are on the fly, YOU can only pick up the message when you are at YOUR broadband-connected computer.
You can give my Jaxtr voicemail line a try on my Contact page at www.fusionview.co.uk/contact.
I also add a line in my email signature: Don’t have time to email? Send me a voicemail instead @ www.jaxtr.com/yangmayooi
The main difference between Jaxtr and the other service I’ll be explaining in a later post, Dial2do, is that the message remains as an audio message for the recipient. Also, it is an application set up by you as the recipient.
Let me know if you give this service and go - and also what you and your friends think about it’s usefulness or otherwise, whether you use it for voicemail or to make and receive calls.
BTW, I’m not commissioned by Jaxtr in any way. This is my personal view based on how useful I’ve found this service.
