I even ended up producing a 4-part series on The Future of Voicemail, kindly supported by the Hullomail team. In the video I interviewed a number of thought-leaders about voicemail’s future. Some of the questions and answers posed were thoroughly engaging.

One of the recurring issues throughout the series was the fact that mobile operators don’t give a toss.

Voicemail is a cost centre.

In some cases, it still generates a bit of revenue.

For the most part though, it’s completely ignored. At the operator, nobody cares. There’s been no innovation whatsoever for the best part of 10 years or more. Case in point: Some operators — still using the same now defunct equipment of yesteryear — routinely require you to ‘delete voicemail messages’ or limit you to 5 or 10 messages, because of ‘space constraints’. That might have been a challenge in 1990, but goodness me, it’s not a problem today.

The recent voicemail hacking news across the UK highlights the TOTAL LACK of innovation. Yes, back in the dark ages — when voicemail was often not a default service offering — PIN numbers were set to 0000 and, yes, it was possible to ‘hack’ into a voicemail account using this way.

This should have been addressed the moment it was raised, formally, as an issue. Operators should have issued everybody with unique PIN numbers. They should have made the decision for their customers’ safety and security.

For the most part, the operators did precisely what they love doing: Nothing. Apart from billing you and I for services and dicking around trying to innovate in other areas, namely the race-to-the-bottom of the PAYG market, screwing up MMS, making a complete hash of LBS and generally getting it all wrong. Vodafone 360. I rest my case.

Operators, to twist a memorable Edmund Blackadder quote, “Couldn’t innovate their way out of a paper bag.”

Which is why this voicemail ‘scandal’ is taking place right now.

You’d be forgiven for thinking it’s all fixed. That hacking or accessing voicemail accounts was now ‘really difficult’.

It’s not.

You just need to look at the email I received just moments ago from one senior executive working in the mobile industry. In the email, he explains that he was able to get the business team at 3UK to change his voicemail PIN by simply giving his name and address.

This means, for example, that you can — using the data freely available on my site here (the address is down the bottom of the page, the phone number is in the contacts) — phone up 3UK and do the same.

The team there will reportedly happily change your voicemail PIN on production of name, mobile number and address/postcode.

Shocking.

Ridiculous.

The executive tried to do the same with is o2 account and was unable to do so unless he provided an account number or some other ‘identity factor’ that proved he was in control of the line. This is good news for o2.

But I should point out, this experiment carried out by the reader was most certainly not objective. He didn’t phone Orange, T-Mobile or Vodafone — as he doesn’t use them.

It’s entirely conceivable that the other operators have a policy in place to prohibit staff from changing voicemail PINs without some kind of security check. I hope they do.

Similarly, it’s possible that the reader’s experience with 3UK was a wholly isolated incident.

Me? Well don’t worry about me and my personal details live on the site here.

I use Hullomail.

I don’t ever the voicemail products from my operators. No. I have everything redirected to Hullomail and Lifeisbetteron’s Voicemail service.

They redirect callers away from the tinpot voicemail systems to much more modern, much more secure third-party services. They can’t be hacked in the usual way — and the features they offer are a billion times more valuable than the bog standard operator facilities.

I strongly recommend taking a look at them.

Meanwhile: Poor show, operators. Poor, poor show.

Yesterday’s revelations about the News of the World newspaper hacking the voicemail of a missing (and sadly, murdered) teenager has — perhaps predictably — resulted in a small outcry on Twitter. This outcry threatens to ‘go nuclear’ as Chris Lake at e-consultancy points out.

Chris has penned a piece this afternoon asking how brands should respond to this outcry. He also links to this handy tweet-ready page that many consumers are using to register their disgust. Someone has compiled a list of brands who advertise with the News of the World newspaper and created a ‘tweet this’ button for each one, enabling you to whack out tweets-of-disgust in record time and without having to go and find the respective Twitter account names.

Chris reckons there’s two possible responses: Either ignore the messages being received or tackle them head on. He also points out that ignoring enquiries from customers is highly dangerous.

I haven’t issued any tweets on the subject but I can tell you, if I sent a note, I’d be expecting a reply today. And anything other than ‘yes we are removing our spend’ is unacceptable.

That’s the consumer viewpoint.

The business end is a little more challenging. The News of the World is read by squillions of people. It’s got a huge reach on Sunday. Pulling advertising is therefore a rather difficult decision.

I imagine most social media experts will be counselling a direct, open response as soon as possible. I also imagine that the corporate communications folk will be thinking the total opposite.

One of the mobile companies collared in that list is T-Mobile.

Here’s an example of what’s going on — each of these people will be wanting a reply from the operator:

What’s the T-Mobile response?

Silence, obviously.

I wonder how many messages T-Mobile would need to receive before they’d feel compelled to reply?

Will this blow over by 6pm tonight? I wonder.

Giles Corbett, top man at Life Is Better ON, makers of ON Voicefeed, did an excellent presentation at Demo recently. The video is now live on Youtube and offers an excellent introduction to their visual voicemail service.

I’ve been testing it for quite a while and I have to say I am particularly impressed at the ability to offer my friends, family and business contacts a unique and customised voicemail greeting. And it’s ridiculously easy to use.

Watch the video here:

And download the app here (iTunes link)

I’ve been getting emails from people wondering when the next episode in the Future of Voicemail Series was going live. Tah dah! It’s here. Episode 4 features the co-founder of HulloMail, Andy Munarriz. Andy’s no stranger to Mobile Industry Review — indeed we first interviewed him on camera about two years ago when HulloMail first launched their iPhone application and service.

Having co-founded a company supplying next-generation voicemail services to consumers (and operators), you’d expect Andy to have something to say on the subject. I’m pleased to say you won’t be disappointed. In today’s episode you’ll see Andy talk through his perspective and experience on the background, development and next generation of voicemail services. It’s particularly interesting given HulloMail’s history delivering voicemail services to mobile operators around the world.

I should point out that it’s down to Andy’s generous support (and the rest of the team at HulloMail) that I’ve been able to produce and publish this series in the first place, as HulloMail are the series sponsor. So thank you Andy.

Right then, have a watch and let me know what you think!

Download M4V Video | Subscribe to Podcast | Embed video

The chaps over at HulloMail (kind sponsors of the Future of Voicemail video series here on MIR) have released the next version of their iPhone application. I got a sneak peak when I popped into the HulloMail offices a few weeks ago and they’ve done some nice refinement.

Here are the latest updates:

- NEW! HulloMail is bringing your address book to life. The HulloMail logo next to a contact means they also use HulloMail and you can send Hullos directly to their phone. But don’t worry you don’t have to be a HulloMail user to receive a Hullo. Where you see the envelope icon, you have their email address and can send a Hullo to them that way
- We’ve now made recording and managing your personal greeting easier as it can all be done on your iPhone
- You can now decide whether you want to be notified of missed calls or not. You can switch this alert on or off via the app Settings menu
- To minimise costs when you travel you can choose to be notified by SMS rather than Push (UK users only)
- We’ve changed the way the app looks to go with our new style, hope you like it

Remember if you’ve got an iPhone from Orange, Vodafone, Three or T-Mobile, you wont’t have visual voicemail facilities as that’s only been implemented by o2. Instead, tap the voicemail button on your brand new iPhone and you’ll be expected to… wait for it… yes, call your voicemail box. Ridiculous. That’s why a ton of non-o2 iPhone users have turned to HulloMail. The service is free and you can get the app on the iTunes store (iTunes link) and they have apps available for BlackBerry and Android too.

For a long time I’ve been pondering the possibilities of the medium of voicemail. For years it’s been overlooked. We all rely on it daily, yet I’m sure hardly any of us give it more than a cursory glance once every few years. For such a critical service, I’ve found it really strange that, on the face of it, the innovation — aside from a few outstanding players — appears to have ground to a halt back in 1995.

I do remember that various operators here in the UK used ‘free voicemail’ as service feature. Long ago, though, I stopped worrying about the cost of voicemail. I just… well at some point, as far as I can remember, it just became free. Or it was added into my ‘minutes bundle’. I confess that I can’t actually tell you if Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile or anyone actually charges for voicemail service anymore.

Whilst it’s a ubiquitous service that (prior to getting her iPhone), even my mother understood, it’s time we saw some innovation. Surely the infrastructure now exists to allow mobile subscribers to go beyond the now-standard 10 voicemail limit? Why did Vodafone and Orange duck out of the visual voicemail issue with iPhone and decide to lumber their iPhone customers with an analog version? Whither transcription and how much of a benefit is that beyond the specific requirements of certain business users? Why don’t mobile operators offer subscribers the ability to get emailed copies of their voicemails? How many people actually use voicemail on a daily basis here in the UK and beyond? Is voicemail still a killer app? Was it ever? What’s next in the field of voicemail? Who’s doing good work, who’s really innovating, who are the companies to watch?

It’s these questions and more that I hope to answer through the upcoming Future of Voicemail Video Series.

The format is this: I will be interviewing 5 leading minds in the mobile and technology field on camera over the next few weeks. I’ll be asking them to comment on the history, the background to the industry, the technology in use today and to speculate on what they see as the next steps for the medium. I aim to bring you one video each week, starting in the next few weeks.

Bringing these kinds of features to the site is something I’ve always wanted to do — but it’s quite a logistical challenge to do so, both from an organisational and filming standpoint. I approached a few companies to help me produce this series — and I’m delighted to thank Andy, Jane and the team at HulloMail for agreeing to help cover the production costs for the series. Thank you HulloMail.

If you haven’t tried out the service, by the way, do check it out — free — at www.hullomail.com.

Right then, standby for the first video interview. If you’ve any questions, drop me a note: ewan@mobileindustryreview.com.

The code helps you skip the sign-up queue as they’re strictly limiting access during their beta period. If you’re looking for a SpinVox replacement that’s actually a trillion times better (the transcription quality is simply fantastic) then Pibbix Voicemail is probably for you.

It’s UK-only at the moment, although I hear they’re looking at other markets soon.

Here’s what you get:

* 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.

It’s not free, though. When you see the quality you’ll understand that they can’t deliver it free.

You can currently pick from the following service plans:

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

If you’d like to see the service in action, check out my screencast on this post.

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.

Complain to either operator and they’ll likely refer to you to HulloMail as a convenient alternative to explaining that they a) haven’t got the rights from Apple and/or b) don’t know how to replicate the experience or c) haven’t quite recovered from the shock of voicemail changing beyond the 10-messages-and-thats-yer-lot experience. I kid ye not. This is Vodafone’s private/public strategy. They will politely ‘suggest’ you ‘check out’ HulloMail — a service that pleasingly replicates the visual voicemail experience and builds upon that with an array of other compelling features (including address book integration) — plus it’s free for consumers. Here’s a recent tweet sent by VodafoneUK mentioning HulloMail.

When I mentioned the video series to Andy Munarriz, one of HulloMail’s founders, he generously offered to help support the series by becoming the sponsor. You’ll thus see HulloMail branding on the intro/end bits of each episode. So thank you Andy and all at HulloMail — your support has enabled me to actually move the series from concept to reality.

Here’s where I need your help though. I’ve got a good selection of industry spokespeople/thought-leaders, Andy included, to agree to go on camera and tell me where they think the future lies. I’m looking for your recommendation on one of the interviewees. The majority of the people I’m going to be interviewing are commercial. That is, they all work in and/or around the mobile industry. This is good, because it’s primarily where I’d like to focus the series, however I would like to get someone from an academic/research background to participate, who can provide some insight into consumer expectations and usability. Do you have any suggestions? They’d need to be in the UK and willing to be filmed in and around London for around an hour.

Let me know? And if you’d like to find out more about the series, just drop me an email (ewan@mobileindustryreview.com). I’ll hopefully be able to commit to publication dates here in the next week or so.

Note: Gary emailed to point out that Judah Klausner apparently invented Visual Voicemail. Here’s the Wikipedia entry. Find out more at this infuriatingly annoying website!

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.

And if you’re a Gmail user (for example), the power and potential of HulloMail really begins to shine through. You can keep every voicemail yourself. You don’t need to worry about constantly dialing up to retrieve messages. If you’re an iPhone user or, better, a G1 user, it’s gorgeous — because you simply click on the attachment and it plays on your handset.

Get a free account at HulloMail now and check it out (it’s free for the time being and they’re aiming to offer premium services and fund the free service with advertising).

You can see it working in the video below…

MIR Show – Week 44 – Andy from HulloMail from Mobile Industry Review on Vimeo.

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 …

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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!

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Jonathan’s also at Sevendotzero.