Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Money & Business

Leave a Voicemail on the Sly With Slydial

July 21, 2008 04:22 PM ET | David LaGesse | Permanent Link | Print
slydial logo
(Courtesy of slydial)

We've all wanted to dodge the chit-chat. We just want to leave a voicemail without risking an actual conversation. On the sly. Now we have slydial.

The new, free service links to the voicemail systems of wireless carriers, allowing you to slip a voice message into someone's mailbox without ringing their phone. Many carriers will let you send a voicemail back to someone who has left you one, but slydial is the first service I've seen for unilaterally dropping in a voice message.

Slydial is fast, easy, and claims to work with all major U.S. carriers. I was able to leave messages on Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T phones.

Slydial plans to pay its way through short ads at the start of the call. The ads I heard today were just a few seconds long. But they were only plugging other services from the service's parent, MobileSphere. We'll have to wait to see if paid ads run longer.

A free MYslydial account lets you set up contacts with four-number PINs that enable faster dialing. Or, click an icon next to their name on the MYslydial site for even faster calls. A premium version cuts out the ads.

The biggest downside is that the service doesn't work with landline voicemail. You need to know the recipient's mobile number, and slydial can't leave messages on prepaid cell phones.

Try it yourself by dialing 1-267-slydial (1-267-759-3425).

Tags: cellphones

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Reader Comments

Didn't work.

Didn't work for me, trying to call from a Verizon phone to another Verizon phone (both mobile numbers). It connected me to the person as though I had called them directly, and we could speak to one another. The slydial web site says this isn't how it works, but it worked this way for me. I wasn't able to leave a voice mail since it rang on her phone just as if I had called her.

didn't work for me either!

i think this is some kind of info collecting service. it dialed the person directly. that is total total BS

Does it work with Call forwarding?

Even though you call a mobile number, if the person has their phone number forwarded to their home or office landline, or vice a versa, would it work then?

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Our in-house gadget guru, Senior Writer David LaGesse, tries out all the latest technologies and gizmos, from computer software to GPS systems -- and reports back to you in plain English.

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