Thursday, August 3, 2006
VoiceMinder: WebIS Bringing My Idea to Reality
Posted by Jason Dunn in "SOFTWARE" @ 04:00 PM
Ok, here's a scenario I find myself in quite often: it seems that my brain, for whatever reason, decides to remind me of things I need to do while I'm absolutely no position to do them. I remember that I need to email someone...while I'm driving. I remember I need to order a online product...while I'm in a movie theatre. I remember I need to make an important phone call...while I'm laying in bed at midnight. Is your brain similarly un-cooperative? Then VoiceMinder may interest you.
As wonderful as our Windows Mobile devices are, they still lack an easy way to create actionable items with the most natural method of output we have: our voice. Sure, you can record a voice memo, but what then? You have to remember to listen to it later - it requires an additional action from you, and if you're like me, you just forget you made the recording and find it weeks later. You could open up Inbox Mobile, create an email to yourself, start the voice recorder, make your recording, then send the email...but try that while driving (actually, don't). You could create a calendar appointment, but what if you aren't able to view the screen on your device? What I found myself doing more and more was phoning my office line and leaving myself a voice mail, so when I returned that voice mail would be my trigger to act. I find myself in scenarios like that all the time, and I came up with the concept for VoiceMinder as a solution. I approached Alex Kac at WebIS and pitched him on the idea, and now VoiceMinder is a real product in development.
The execution is simple: VoiceMinder is a single-button push to start, single-button push to finish, fully automated solution that allows you to record a voice memo and email it to a specific email address. Why email? Email rules my world. It's my to-do list. I don't use tasks in Outlook. I use calendar appointments as tasks lists when I'm in front of my PC, but when I'm not, I find it a hassle to enter appointments on my Pocket PC or Smartphone because the interface is so slow. If I have an email sitting in my Inbox, I can take action on it. So for me, the key to having VoiceMinder unlock my productivity was to have it be incredibly streamlined and focused. It's a one-trick pony, yes, but it's a really useful trick. ;-)
VoiceMinder is in beta testing right now, and is rough around the edges, but the basic functionality is there. The application will be released for both Pocket PCs and Smartphones (it will really shine on a Smartphone), and will have a disconnected mode for those of you without connected Pocket PCs, or without flat-rate bandwidth. The scenario there is that when you sync with your desktop PC, VoiceMinder will use the ActiveSync pass-through connection to deliver the voice memos to your Inbox. The default voice memo recording level is quite space-efficient: a 23 second recording is only 183 KB. More on VoiceMinder to come, but I wanted to give the Pocket PC Thoughts community a heads-up that this application is coming.
And in the interest of full disclosure, as the originator of the application concept, I will make a small profit from sales of the product. I hope that doesn't stop anyone from buying and using it though. ;-)
As wonderful as our Windows Mobile devices are, they still lack an easy way to create actionable items with the most natural method of output we have: our voice. Sure, you can record a voice memo, but what then? You have to remember to listen to it later - it requires an additional action from you, and if you're like me, you just forget you made the recording and find it weeks later. You could open up Inbox Mobile, create an email to yourself, start the voice recorder, make your recording, then send the email...but try that while driving (actually, don't). You could create a calendar appointment, but what if you aren't able to view the screen on your device? What I found myself doing more and more was phoning my office line and leaving myself a voice mail, so when I returned that voice mail would be my trigger to act. I find myself in scenarios like that all the time, and I came up with the concept for VoiceMinder as a solution. I approached Alex Kac at WebIS and pitched him on the idea, and now VoiceMinder is a real product in development.
The execution is simple: VoiceMinder is a single-button push to start, single-button push to finish, fully automated solution that allows you to record a voice memo and email it to a specific email address. Why email? Email rules my world. It's my to-do list. I don't use tasks in Outlook. I use calendar appointments as tasks lists when I'm in front of my PC, but when I'm not, I find it a hassle to enter appointments on my Pocket PC or Smartphone because the interface is so slow. If I have an email sitting in my Inbox, I can take action on it. So for me, the key to having VoiceMinder unlock my productivity was to have it be incredibly streamlined and focused. It's a one-trick pony, yes, but it's a really useful trick. ;-)
VoiceMinder is in beta testing right now, and is rough around the edges, but the basic functionality is there. The application will be released for both Pocket PCs and Smartphones (it will really shine on a Smartphone), and will have a disconnected mode for those of you without connected Pocket PCs, or without flat-rate bandwidth. The scenario there is that when you sync with your desktop PC, VoiceMinder will use the ActiveSync pass-through connection to deliver the voice memos to your Inbox. The default voice memo recording level is quite space-efficient: a 23 second recording is only 183 KB. More on VoiceMinder to come, but I wanted to give the Pocket PC Thoughts community a heads-up that this application is coming.
And in the interest of full disclosure, as the originator of the application concept, I will make a small profit from sales of the product. I hope that doesn't stop anyone from buying and using it though. ;-)
