Early adapter series: PhoneTag

The techies of the world have a word for people like me: Early Adapter. While I wasn't the first to use the wheel or the cotton gin, I am generally the first (among people I know in real life) to adapt to a new technology.

A few examples are: This blog (been here since May 2004 with 800+ posts), using a Treo, GMail, LogMeIn, Jott, Picasa, Google Reader. To most of the tech world, these are not earth shatteringly wild advances, rather the way of the geek: adopt early, adopt often.

Today, I'd like to share with you a new service I've been using daily for about 2 months and am really enjoying: PhoneTag™.

Here's a video of it in action:



I get a decent amount of voice mail probably because I was in a meeting with a client or co-worker or just in a place that I couldn't talk. When I check the email on my Treo, all of the voice mails left for me are waiting there and were transcribed (well mostly "Gown a melt?") into text with the audio attached so I can listen to it, read it or both. The same message is also stored on my Outlook, GMail, and on the PhoneTag™ website. (If you don't have a Treo/Blackberry type phone, PhoneTag™ can SMS those transcriptions to you instead)

Did you notice it read: PhoneTag from Becky Kaine in the video? I can upload my contacts to the site and when one of them leaves me a message, the email notifying me of their message will come from THEM so I can just reply to the message like it was an email. Cool, huh?

Have you ever archived a voice mail that needed action only to listen to it 2 weeks later and scream: SHIIIIIIT!? OK, just me then. Well, because a copy of the message goes to my inbox, it remains there as a reminder to act on the task.

The price plans are pretty reasonable, and since I love the service I'm more than happy to shell out the $9.95 a month (plus .25 each additional message beyond 40 a month).

Oh, if you decide to sign up - you'll get a week for free to try it and I'll get a month for free! Thanks in advance :0-)

Let me know what you think in the comments, I love what you have to say, well.... type.