First we had chat and IM, then it was VoIP. Is asynchronous voice chat the next big thing or is it one tool too many?
TechCrunch.com reviews Say2GO, a new "near real time" voice messaging system combining some of the aspects of IM and voicemail to get to a place where you can voice chat in near-real-time rather than real-time. Currently in limited beta, the software provides users the ability to send and receive voice messages that are transcribed using voice recognition and sent both as audio and text--always a good thing, if the Speech API doesn't convert the voice to text cleanly.
Microsoft's Messenger software has a capability called Voice Clips to enable users to send 15 second voice notes, but Say2GO enables the user to playback a recording, cancel, or schedule it to be sent later.
Unfortunately, the app doesn't do so well in the voice recognition department, but Say2GO expects to add other features on top of existing IM networks.
For more:
- Techcrunch.com reviews Say2GO [1]
Related article:
Microsoft buys voice
recognition company [2] Tellme
Links:
[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/06/AR2008070601711.html
[2] http://www.fierceenterprisecommunications.com/story/microsoft-buys-voice-recognition-company-tellme/2007-03-16