:: 5 comments (rss)

1. posted by James Whatley on Tue, November 11, 2008 @ 5:00 am

   Hey Eric,

   Just seen your post, great write up - thanks! I found it particularly interesting as it touched upon some theories I’ve been working on over at Big Talk (the SpinVox Blog).

   Not link-bait AT ALL (really not my style) but I’d be interested on your POV on the ‘Confidence in Communication’ post I put together a while back. As I said, your post resonates well I think - given the ‘priority’ status you give over to vocal messages.

   Either way, keep up the good work and great to read how much you enjoy using SpinVox.

   Cheers,

   James Whatley Digital & Social Media SpinVox

   Ps - that post?

   http://blog.spinvox.com/2008/0.....unication/

   :)

2. posted by echeng on Tue, November 11, 2008 @ 12:52 pm

   Hi, James -

   I agree with your thoughts on communication media, prioritization, and how SpinVox fits into the list. My friends who are thoroughly immersed in technology feel the same way. But some people are afraid of SpinVox; when they hear the message that tells them their voicemail will be translated to text, they get nervous — they try to speak more clearly, and sometimes, they clam up. It does, however, seem to be a small minority of people who have a hard time adapting. The first thing one of my friends did when I signed up for the service is to call up and sing a song, just to see what would happen. :)

3. posted by James Whatley on Tue, November 11, 2008 @ 3:11 pm

   Eric,

   Thank you for the great feedback and thank you for taking the time to read my post (it’s not exactly a short one!).

   I’ve had that singing thing before - as well as accents, silly voices and sometimes just plain gibberish!

   I’ll pass on your post to our guys in product development - it seems they may be a need for the ’spinvox sound’ to be an opt out.

   Thanks gain,

   James.

4. posted by Mark B. on Wed, November 19, 2008 @ 12:32 am

   Eric: I’ve been rather skeptical of software recognizing speech adequately to accurately translate it to text–how accurate is this service?

   A related comment to illustrate my skepticism of voice-recognition for a variety of voices: I have fun showing people the moments when Google 411 fails to understand me–sometimes it’s when I use an accent instead of my usual voice, but I’ve been surprised when the software does not recognize even American forms of name. I suppose the Google $$$$ are financing improved software, but still this is an enduring issue for me. How well does software recognize a wide spectrum of American accents, and then add on other languages?

   Sorry for the long comment, but I’d be interested in your thoughts.

   –markb

5. posted by echeng on Wed, November 19, 2008 @ 12:35 am

   SpinVox uses humans, I’m told. It’s very accurate, as long as the speaker isn’t mumbling too badly.

   Some names get bungled and are spelled phonetically, but for the most part, American English has been translated well. I think the SpinVox operators are Irish, so British English is probably fine as well.

   As an example, here’s a message I received yesterday:

   “Hey man, it’s it’s Don. I just stepped outside. I’m actually driving down to see my wife and her horses. But we got like 3 major fires in the immediate vicinity around my house. Man it looks like whatever imagine a nuclear Winter might look like. Pretty cool. Anyway miles and miles are houses between me and the actual fire. So we can see them. Pretty cool. Anyway that’s it. I’ll talk to you later. Bye.”

   Here’s one of the first ones I received — it’s from my friend, Mandy, who called up and sang into the phone. :)

   “Hello, Eric. This is Mandy & I just wanted to say shooby dooby shananana, lalalalalala, ok. Bye.”

:: leave a reply