Cloud computing users are not necessarily surgically attached to their computer in an office. They get out and about, have a life and at times can be mistaken for humans having a beer or glass of wine in a bar! However, being tech-savvy types they want their business tools to work efficiently and effectively as much as possible and this applies to their mobile phones. If you don’t believe you can send emails, texts and reminders via voice and have a virtual phone network that links all types of phone then you will be pleasantly surprised by Dial2Do and Ribbit.
Dial2Do promotes itself as a hands-free digital assistant and really scores because of the accuracy of its voice recognition engine. It enables you to send emails reminders, texts and tweets purely through speech and at the price of a local call.
It has been some months since I took a look at the home page and the services have expanded dramatically since I signed up. Then you could send emails, texts and reminders to yourself, contacts or group contacts. Now you can do all of that plus send tweets, post notes to your Evernote account, talk your expenses through to Xpenser. Other linked services include Tumblr and you can listen to a range of news feeds from Perez Hilton to the New York Times.
I just discovered a downside to sending Tweets via Dial2d0, the tweets carry a link to the service and people can hear you talk the message through – how do you like my London twang!
For transmitting information as emails, texts etc you need to set up your contacts within your Dial2Do account by putting their name, email address and mobile number. Dial2Do will choose the voice activated name but you can edit that to change it to nicknames, just first names etc. Dial2Do also enables you to import contacts from AOL, Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo etc so setting up a comprehensive contacts list is simplicity itself.
To me the beauty of Dial2Do is that while it is easy to set up and even easier to use, it is tremendously powerful and having it setup as a speed dial number means I can carry on with business safely, even while driving.
For more information there is an explanatory video is below.
Ribbit is a different service in that it controls the way that you utilise the various phones in your network – home, office, mobile, etc – but it does include some messaging services in that it will text your voicemails to you and you can store them for however long you need them.
You can make your otherwise dead travel time more productive by creating voice memos on your phone. Simply dial into your Ribbit voicemail, select the voice memo option, and speak into your phone. Ribbit Mobile will convert your words to text and send them to you via email, SMS text, and your Ribbit account online.
Another nifty feature allows you to route your calls to any or all of your phones so it doesn’t matter where you are the phone will ring and you will have the peace of mind that you will not miss a call because you are not at a specific location.
Ribbit also enhances your conversations with up-to-date social information published by your contacts – including Twitter status, blog posts, and more. Ribbit Mobile provides you with an at-a-glance view of recent web activity so you can be informed before you pick up the phone. So if your friend Nancy phones you can see she’s just tweeted on dinner arrangements and you can pick up the call and say “Hi Nancy, I can meet you at the restaurant at 7.30pm tonight.” This will either impress her or spook the hell out of her – after all who wants a friend with second sight!
Ribbit is currently in beta and only available to people in the United States or United Kingdom, the latter should start getting acceptances early in 2010.
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