Now, e-mail without all that writing 
James Connell International Herald Tribune 
Friday, July 30, 2004

 
PARIS If you are a slow typist, a bad typist, injured or otherwise
keyboard-impaired, writing long e-mail messages will always be a pain,
even if you’re just socializing. 

A New York-based company called 2speak is pitching a solution to this
problem, and perhaps a few others. 

The company’s Web site, www.mail2speak.com, offers a quick and
relatively easy way to dictate an e-mail and send it to as many as 25
people, who can click on a button and listen to your voice message —
over and over again if they so desire. The messages can be archived
forever, unlike with most traditional voice mail systems. 

Mail2speak, unveiled in June, works like this: You fill out a form on
the site with your name, your e-mail, your phone number, a subject line
and then as many as 25 recipients’ e-mails. Then you click on the ‘‘call
me now’’ button. Seconds later, your phone rings and you dictate your
message. The service transforms your words into a sound file, then
e-mails copies to you and all of your recipients. You do not have to
download or install any software. 

From a fixed line, the service works very well. While a few of my
correspondents were a little confused about why I was sending voice mail
to their e-mail addresses, they all got the messages loud and clear. 

Is it free? No. Sorry, the days when dot-coms sold things for less than
cost and tried to make up for it on volume are long gone. 

‘‘The key component is that we call you and deliver you a dial tone,’’
Warner Johnson, president of 2speak, said in an interview. ‘‘There is a
cost associated with doing this. The cost is low, but idea of making it
free is not something we could pursue.’’ Johnson added that the kinds of
customers the company is trying to attract would not be willing to
listen to or view ads in order to use the service. 

The company charges a per-minute fee to record messages, and the cost
varies depending on what country you are in and whether or not you are
using a mobile phone. 

In the United States, the first five recording sessions are free, and
after that you pay 25 cents per minute during recordings, whether you
are on a fixed line or a mobile. Outside the United States, only the
first call is free, and the charges are higher for mobile phone users.
In France, for example, it costs 20 euro cents per minute on a fixed
line and 52 euro cents per minute via mobile phone. Billing is done by
registering a credit card on the site, and the service is available
anywhere in the world with a telephone and Internet access. 

‘‘What is the point?’’ I first thought. ‘‘I can record a voice message
on my computer, compress it and e-mail it to as many addresses as I want
for free.’’ Johnson pointed out that while about 90 percent of the
computers connected to the Internet have speakers, only about 5 percent
have microphones. He was polite enough not to point out that most people
aren’t as geeky as I am. 

Also, as the service is available worldwide, you could use it from a Web
café in Bangkok, for example, to send a birthday greeting to a loved one
in Prague. 

For me, the ‘‘killer app’’ for something like this is when you are on
the move. Sending a long e-mail from a mobile phone or a wireless
handheld device is a chore no matter how quickly you can thumb-type or
how adept you are with a skinny little stylus. The good news is that
2speak has just started services that work from mobile Internet devices.
But they are not quite as reliable.

The service I tested, pda2speak.com, did not work every time, and when
it did work, the messages were often warbly and garbled. Johnson points
out that this is because mobile networks are not as reliable as
fixed-line networks. For the mobile service to work perfectly, I found,
you need a strong network signal and a relatively quiet place. 

The company is working on a variety of other projects, including an
SMS-based service, which would allow you to text the company to begin a
recording session, bypassing unreliable mobile data networks.
Eventually, Johnson said, 2speak will have a service that will call you
back and connect you live to any phone in the world, using
voice-over-Internet protocol to offer cheaper calls. International
Herald Tribune 



Write to [log in to unmask] 



 Copyright © 2004 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com