With Google Voice, Say Goodbye to Voicemail Once and for All

Having been involved in the early days of voice messaging before any form of online text messaging, voice mail was a practical solution for failed telephone call attempts, i.e., telephone answering. Today, even synchronous phone calls are not really needed, when flexible messaging alternatives are available.

So, with new capabilities like telephony presence/availability information and voice-to-text messaging services, voice mail is really transitioning to a contact initiator (caller) interface option for sending a person-to-person message via speech, rather than typing text. The message recipient has the same kind of flexible options to listen to a text message when in a hands-free, eyes-free (mobile) situation.

The biggest benefit to both the contact intiator and recipient/respondent from the new flexibility of messaging in a unified communications (UC) environment, is that users can communicate independently of each other's prefernces, and we won't have to transcribe important information from a voice message any more.

Art Rosenberg, The Unified-View of CA 1:12PM May 14, 2009