You probably haven’t heard of them before, but you’re going to start hearing a lot more about them shortly. They’re a small telephony-focused startup that I’ve been following for quite some time.

Their first product is Pibbix Voicemail. At first glance, it’s a terrifically simple system. It’s what’s coming next that’s going to change the world.

If you were previously a SpinVox user, you’ll know what to expect right-way. But it’s not free. Pibbix aren’t after the jonny-freebie category. Indeed if you want a better voicemail system, but you’re not willing to pay, simply move on. Don’t ready any further.

Pibbix are building a solid, business-focused service that you can rely on. Here are the main service features:

* Voice to text conversion: ‘Business-grade’ transcription – the best quality human-assisted voice-to-text conversion available in the UK.
* SMS and E-mail Notifications: Messages can be delivered by SMS and e-mail. E-mails include the original audio recording.
* Online management: View, read, listen-to and manage your voicemails and account through our web interface.
* Common-sense controls: Choose whether calls from withheld numbers should be converted to text and prevent salespeople from using your message allowance.
* Predictable billing: Pay per voicemail, not per SMS – longer messages don’t cost more.
* A number to use anywhere: Get a direct-dial number for your voicemail to divert any telephone to or use online to minimise interruptions
* Secure and reliable: Encrypted web access as used by online banks. Pibbix operates simultaneously from 2 UK data centres and voicemails are backed-up daily.
* Great support: A dedicated support team and online support system tailored for the most demanding users.

I’ve been up and running with it for 2 days and it’s performing very well indeed. Transcription is brilliant.

Here’s the fee structure:

* £7.50 for 20 messages converted to text
* £16 for 50 messages converted to text
* £30 for 100 messages converted to text

I opted for the 30 quid one. I get a lot of messages!

Pibbix Voicemail is in closed beta at the moment, but if you’d like an invite code, head over to the site and register now. Or, drop me a note (ewan@mobileindustryreview.com) as I should have some invite codes shortly.

I’ve made a screencast demonstrating the system in use. Here’s the Youtube:

And if you’d like to watch at full resolution, see the screencast here.

Unlike SpinVox, VoxSciences are profitable — although the facility is not free of charge. There are two basic service plans:

I know quite a few readers who are utterly delighted with their VoxSciences service, so do check them out. They have a 7-day free trial available and if you’d like you check out their quality right now, call their test line on +44 (0) 207 050 5000 on your mobile. Record a message and they’ll text the transcription back to your mobile in a few moments.

Do think about using VoxSciences for other things like customer comment lines or any scenario that requires speech transcription.

I’ve been using it for a long time and I’m entirely delighted with the service, functionality and concept — it interoperates beautifully with my Google Mail.

Here’s a little more about the service:

The HulloMail visual voicemail service provides messages and missed calls directly to the user’s mobile app, email and/or their My HulloMail online account. In one click, users can instantly play the voicemail, as well as save, forward, archive, delete or even post it onto social media sites or forums as an MP3 file.

HulloMail also allows subscribers to communicate for free by sending ‘Hullos’, which are short, instant messages that enable users to send and receive voice messages without actually having to make a phone call. It has been compared to the voice equivalent of texting or instant messaging.

They’ve got clients for BlackBerry, iPhone and Android. And… what’s more, they’re free…

Get stuck in at www.hullomail.com.

MIR MWC: James Whatley Introduces the SpinVox Stand from Mobile Industry Review on Vimeo.

MIR Show – James gets his MIR Jacket from Mobile Industry Review on Vimeo.

In fact I actually interviewed regular contributor, Barney Craggs, last night at MoMo/Swedish Beers and he commented on this, thinking it was weird that we had James Whatley of SpinVox interviewing Andy Munarriz of HulloMail.

If you wnat your voicemails by text — I do — then SpinVox delivers. If you want to ‘own’ your own voicemails — that is, keep them in one place (e.g. your email) and be able to reference/forward/reply to them easily through your mail client, HulloMail is the way ahead.

I don’t think they’re competitors per se. I think they are offering alternative services — and that you’re very much one or the other.

However increasingly I’m finding that I’d like both.

I’d like to keep my voicemails in my inbox — AND get them immediately transcribed and delivered to my handset’s SMS inbox. I wonder if there’s a way for them to do business together?

But they’re back.

Some enterprising arse with a JCB Digger cut through some major fibre optics in London yesterday afternoon, killing most (if not all) of their UK/European SpinVox inbound telecommunications facilities.

Bit of an arse, eh?

Especially if you’re a billion dollar communications company. I’m not sure who their telecoms supplier is — but if it’s Global Crossing, then this Register story has more info.

At least SpinVox didn’t do the Skype-thing and blog about how much pizza they’re eating to try and fix it.

If you were wondering what was up with your SpinVox service last night, there you go.

All fine now.

For those of you not familiar with Ping.fm, it’s a simple looking website with a powerful backend that integrates dozens of blogging, status and social websites such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Blogger.com etc etc. In a single click you can push a short status update to all your profiles.

Personally, I love Ping.fm. Enough that when I first found out about it I setup an unofficial SMS interface for it so users can send Ping.fm a text message to update their statuses (more info on this here) but now, thanks to SpinVox, we don’t even need to tap out a message, simply call a number and, as their marketing message says, Speak Freely! SpinVox will convert your voice to text and Ping.fm will push that text to all of your profiles, optionally with a link to the original sound file.

It’s brilliant stuff but don’t take my word for it, sign up for ping.fm and give it a try for free at http://ping.fm/spinvox/

This afternoon, I was hoping to connect with James Siminoff, Chief Executive of Phonetag. Alas there was a scheduling conflict but I’m going to see what we can do tomorrow to meet him.

I’d like to find out a lot more about Phonetag. It’s named after that annoying hobby — ‘playing phonetag’ — the concept being that their service kills your average game of phonetag stone dead. That can only be a good thing.

Like the $200m SpinVox behemoth, Phonetag converts your voicemails to text. But there’s more. There’s address book integration — a major arse when it comes to SpinVox. I haven’t taken a look nor have I had a demo of Phonetag so I’ll reserve judgment. I’m particularly interested to check out their transcription quality and find out a lot more about their business model(s).

The service is US-only at the moment but if you’re in the States, give it a go and let me know how you get on with it?

“What, the ballsy one from Newsnight?” he qualified.

“That’s her.”

I’ve never met her myself. I talked to Daniel, the other co-founder (“DD”) who took me through the SpinVox story. But not Christina.

She does write to me. Me and a million+ other SpinVox users. I wanted to record their second edition of their newsletter — it contains some good stuff. Did you, for example, know that they’ve deployed service for 12 operators? Or that they’re heading into the next phase of their development plan and getting really Voxy?

Over to Christina:

It’s already time for the second edition of our e-newsletter which is designed to keep you in touch with the pace of development here at SpinVox as we lead the market that’s transforming the way people interact. Such is the pace of change, that already our newsletter has a new name ‘The Vox’ – a name that reflects how our business is evolving. But more of that later.

I’ve always believed in two business maxims: if you can’t explain your business in less than 30 seconds, you don’t have a business; and that one of the secrets for success is to focus on a single idea.

Thus the initial appeal of SpinVox was that it made it much easier for people to receive a message when they couldn’t answer, than to retrieve and listen to voicemails.

Twelve carrier deployments later, we’ve proved that we have the carrier-grade scalability to deliver real-time, accurate voice-to-text conversion on any phone, anywhere and at anytime – at a rate of thousands per minute.

We’re now ideally-placed for the next phase of delivery into our market: SpinVox services focused on delivering choice and value to the speaking ‘A’ party. That’s revolutionary – as SpinVox now becomes a network feature we can all use regardless of who we are trying to contact, or where we are calling from.

Voice-to-content will power the sort of messages that people use in their daily lives: from ‘I missed you when I called, so I Voxed you instead’; to ‘I’m busy, but I wanted to get this message to you’, and on to ‘I really want to share this moment with my social network.’

We call speaking a message a Vox. It simplifies life by using voices as the most natural and powerful way of communicating. Using Vox ensures that you can always choose how you want to create your message.

VoxMail is what you receive as text. The message arrives without it intruding on what you’re doing, and you’re given the same Vox options when you respond.

This is because every VoxMail will contain VoxLinks. These give the user the opportunity to respond by speaking a text or an email; posting a message on a social network; or even engaging Outlook to confirm an appointment.

Whether the user is the caller or the one being called, there is a single relationship through SpinVox that stimulates a natural flow of conversations, and creates new revenue opportunities for carriers.

SpinVox provides solutions to everyday communications needs that we all experience, and enables carriers to leverage existing technology and handsets and – critically – tap into existing user behaviour to help communicate and interact better. These can be delivered across the network with voice-to-text conversion as a mass-market service feature – free to receive, and at no premium to the calling party.

This increases network value: the user-experience is much more simple and natural, with obvious choices to continue conversations in ways that suit them at that time. There is also growth through messaging, and additional revenues through call-continuity and call completion – and by extending calling circles into social media spaces. SpinVox can also reduce costs, and even prompt further revenue gains, through the semantic web – or Web 3.0 as it is becoming known – by promoting the value of voice as digital content that can be stored, edited, searched and linked intelligently.

And, through brands and people-centric organisations across the globe, this principle extends to content platforms and media networks – making the human voice both immensely powerful and valuable. Whether by helping to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS by allowing people to Speak Freely about sex as part of MTV’s ‘Stand By What You Say’ campaign, or opening up the democratic process through listener engagement with New York’s WNYC on Super Tuesday, the possibilities are infinite.

That’s because the reality is that speaking remains – and will remain – the most natural way to express a thought or a feeling; while seeing is the quickest, easiest and most convenient way to receive a message or group of messages. With SpinVox, the phrase ‘I see what you’re saying’ has never been more powerful.

Christina Domecq, co-founder and CEO

I had a note in from Alfie of Moblog telling me about their new competition, Lovetheaccent.com.

It’s a rather wicked proof of concept demonstrating the integration between Moblog and SpinVox. (I haven’t written much about SpinVox recently — still loving it. Still a critical service for me.)

The competition is quite simple. Call up the Moblog SpinVox number, tell the world what accent you love or hate — and why — and your message (and audio) will be posted live to the Lovetheaccent.com site.

The best caller (I’m not sure how that’s judged… so, be creative!) will win an Nokia N82 along with a year’s free subscription to both Moblog and Spinvox. On top of that, you’ll also get 250 Moo cards.

This week we go to press early because there’s been a lot of debate over the past few days on the subject of voicemail and its future …

—

Fellow SMS Text News contributor (and mobile geek extraordinaire) James Whatley (aka Whatleydude) recently organised some SpinVox accounts for my family. I know I wouldn’t be without SpinVox but what about the rest of the family? Is SpinVox really just for mobile geeks or does it have appeal to Normobs (normal mobile users) too?

So what is SpinVox? SpinVox Voicemail replaces your mobile operator’s voice mail with a speech to text service that converts the caller’s voice message into a text message which is sent to your mobile as a SMS, plus an email to your PC too if you choose. It’s so much easier reading the voice message than having to dial in and listen to it. Of course, if you do want to listen to it, the original message is only a phone call away! The caller either hears your voice as usual or the ‘SpinVox lady’, asking them to leave a message.

I’m a big fan of SpinVox. I’ve used SpinVox instead of regular voice mail for over a year now and there’s no way I’d go back to voice mail. But what do Normobs make of SpinVox? Well my wife started out a bit sceptical. ‘Why would I pay extra for something I get for free now?’ was the initial comment when I asked her to test out SpinVox. However, after a few messages she was very impressed and agreed that it greatly improved the voice mail experience. She particularly likes receiving a text message when mobile coverage is poor – difficult to make calls but sufficient for SMS.

I also put SpinVox on my teenage kids’ phones. Whilst they both thought it was quite good, they said they wouldn’t be prepared to pay extra for it. Because they both tend to communicate by SMS, the idea of an enhanced voice mail service was of less appeal. The verdict was they would use it if it was available as part of their existing mobile package but it didn’t merit paying for as an extra. SMS is a more important communication medium to them than voice.

Inevitably speech to text transcription suffers from a small degree of error, particularly if there is background noise like street noise or traffic. Whilst I can accept a few errors, Normobs have a high expectation of transcription accuracy (like 100%!) and don’t appreciate the nuances of the technology. My take on this is that their expectation is based on text messages which of course exactly reflect the accuracy of the sender.

Pricing is an interesting area. We mobile geeks are much readier to accept that an extra service like SpinVox has its own price point and be prepared to pay for it. For Normobs this seems to be more of a barrier. I think this could be overcome by integrating SpinVox into the mobile operators’ packages where the additional cost could form part of the overall package. The customer still pays for SpinVox but the additional cost is not obvious. This approach would extend the reach of SpinVox and create a much simpler customer experience. Selling an additional third party service to customers is always a challenge but if it can be included in the operator package – job done!

What enhancements to SpinVox Voicemail would I like to see?

- Support for multiple mobile numbers within a single SpinVox account would be great for those of us with several handsets.

- The delay when a call diverts before the caller hears the SpinVox message seems longer than with regular voice mail.

- I got a couple of comments that messages were slow to arrive. I would agree they take a little longer than a regular voice mail SMS alert.

- Pricing seems a little on the high side at 30p to 20p per message, depending on the tariff. Whilst mobile geeks may see this as a reasonable premium for the service, it reduces the appeal to Normobs.

One little extra which is one of my favourites … SpinVox Voicemail subscribers also get free access to SpinVox Memo. This allows you to call SpinVox, record a short note to yourself & the message is sent to you as a text email. Useful when you’re out and about and think of something you must remember. I’ve set up a rule to forward these emails to my Evernote account so I’ve always got them.

Since I wrote the first draft of this post, there’s been a lot of debate online about voicemail being dead. To me, SpinVox neatly bridges the old world of voicemail with the world of text.

Finally, James Whatley is generously offering five SpinVox accounts on a one month trial. Everyone who comments to this post will go into a draw, to be drawn live on the SMS Text News podcast. So get commenting!

—

Jonathan’s also at Sevendotzero.

The cleverness about this campaign is the way they’re using mobile technology:

“Bloggers from the three organisations will be roaming the festival, taking pictures and video clips and posting them to  http://leavenotrace.org.uk, which is also available as a mobile website, http://m.leavenotrace.org.uk for easy access on-site. Because these posts will also be marked on a Google map, we’ll be showing where the best examples of green living are – whether it’s solar-powered showers, sculpture made from recycled materials or water-saving systems – as well as highlighting the nooks and crannies of the festival which might otherwise be missed. Plus everyone on the farm can contribute images and video can be posted to the site by sending an SMS or MMS with the keyword TIDY at the start to 07786 201 241″

The bloggers will also be using another of our favourite mobile technologies Spinvox to post to the site during the festival meaning they’ll be producing the entire site’s content from an entirely mobile platform.

Excellent stuff, but also both technologies available to everyone to use right now… It’s incredible to see how quickly mobile blogging technology is maturing.

I’d left my Nokia E90 inside. I didn’t have the keys.

Arse.

Class-A ARSE, on many different levels.

Luckily I’ve got my trusty Vodafone Blackberry. However it’s on a data-only tariff, which means any calls or texts are charged at you-must-be-joking rate. 40p a minute, I think it is. Gahhhh.

I’m still connected. Got my email. I’m getting an inordinate amount of SpinVox messages today as a result. The biggest problem for me and SpinVox at the moment is that I don’t know who ‘Message from +44764646464′ is.

Normally if I’m on my mobile phone receiving SpinVox messages, they send the message from the originating MSISDN mobile number of the caller. So if I’ve got a message from, for argument’s sake, James Whatley, Social Media God at SpinVox (and SMS Text News contributor), it’ll appear as a text message from him in my inbox. Smart.

Utterly useless though, when I’m without my phone.

I really want SpinVox to implement some sort of address book look up thing. Telling me someone’s number is slightly helpful. I’d rather know their name, if they’re known to me.

Still, if I knew what the address was to download the SpinVox Blackberry client, I’d do so. I think this has the requisite function.

TV AND SPINVOX PARTNER TO LAUNCH FIRST EVER INTEGRATED VOICE POWERED CAUSE-RELATED SOCIAL NETWORKING CAMPAIGN ‘STAND BY WHAT YOU SAY’

CAMPAIGN VOICED BY SUPERSTAR KELLY ROWLAND

‘CAUSES’ PROMOTES CAMPAIGN TO ITS 12 MILLION SUBSCRIBERS

London/New York – 10 June, 2008 – MTV’s Staying Alive Foundation, SpinVox and Causes on Facebook today announced the launch of their joint campaign, ‘Stand by What You Say’. The groundbreaking initiative encourages young people to speak openly about sex, sexual health and HIV/AIDS, with a view to increasing awareness and breaking down the stigma and discrimination which so often accompanies the disease.

The campaign, which uses the SpinVox service to convert voice messages into text, is the first of its kind. It encourages users to pick up the phone and ‘Talk About…’ the pleasures and issues surrounding 21st century sex . Those that speak up are then asked to bolster their support by pledging money to the Staying Alive Foundation, MTV’s HIV and AIDS charity which allocates grants to youth-led organisations who work to raise awareness on a local, grass-roots level. SpinVox itself will be ‘standing by what it says’ to match funds raised to the value of $50,000.

‘Stand By What You Say’ aims to empower young people to speak freely about sex. It advocates that only by speaking openly can the stigmas be erased and barriers broken down. An open mind leads to open discussions which ultimately helps promote safe sex and lowers the risk of HIV and AIDS.

Callers are greeted by 2008 Staying Alive Foundation Ambassador Kelly Rowland, who prompts them to leave a message (UK: 0151 266 7700, US: 1513 729 6417 – see full list of numbers at end of release). The voice messages are converted to text and posted on a bespoke Staying Alive Blog www.standbywhatyousay.com by SpinVox. Topics such as ‘sex secrets, ‘one night stands’ and ‘condoms’ will act as conversation starters and encourage debate among a global youth audience. Different themes and questions will be posed throughout the campaign to keep the contributions coming.

“MTV is proud to be a part of this innovative campaign”, said Bill Roedy CEO MTV Networks International. It is only by speaking out openly about sex, sexual health and HIV/AIDS, that attitudes can be changed, barriers broken and stigma reduced. ‘STAND BY WHAT YOU SAY’ is the right to talk freely about your first crush, about the craziest place you’ve had sex, about carrying condoms. It’s about talking freely about peer pressure to have sex or choosing not to. By speaking freely and standing by what you say, we are encouraging young people to take the first step in altering the dynamics of the epidemic”.

“Voice-powering a campaign in this way is a world first,” says Christina Domecq, SpinVox co-founder and CEO. “Together with MTV we’re breaking new ground by changing how people can contribute to the Staying Alive Foundation, encouraging them to speak freely, openly and honestly about sex and the issues of HIV/AIDS. Sharing experiences, advice, the good and bad times, but also the ridiculous and humourous moments that happen around sex is a powerful way to involve and educate others, harnessing the power that we all have to change attitudes and so the progression of this disease.”

For more information about the Staying Alive Foundation, visit www.staying-alive.org. Full list of campaign telephone numbers:

UK: 0151 266 7700

US: 1513 729 6417

Canada: 1416 628 8501

Spain: 3493 184 2078

Germany: 4921 123 7061072

France: 3317 666 0863

Ireland: 3531 657 1891

Love it! Love it! Love it! Kudos to SpinVox! I love seeing technology being used to help and make a difference. I urge everyone to call your number and stand by what you say!