Don’t like listening to your voicemails? Wish they'd just send a text instead? No worries, your problems are over: Text Voicemail is here.

 

We know you can read faster than you can listen to somebody talk. 'Uh… Murray, I… oh, this is Marcia. Yeah”. (Inexplicable pause, weird background noises possibly having to do with food consumption.) “Um, hey, so, I was, like, hoping you… you know, you would be there… It's my band's first gig… you…'

 

Imagine being able to glance at that and get the gist of it in a few seconds rather than have to wade through all that wondering when and if Marcia's ever going to get to the point. If she has a point.

 

Phone.com's Text Voicemail transcription service lets you read voicemail rather than listen to the actual message.

 

'Your voicemail message is converted by a team of transcribers from voice to text then emailed directly to you,' the virtual office provider said.

 

It costs 25 cents per transcribed message, and if you find yourself wishing you didn't have to waste so much time listening to so many junky voice messages it might be just the thing: 'Hey, bro, I've been meaning to talk to you about what you said in Econ last week. You have to understand a bit about where I'm coming from. See, I was born in Kansas…'

 

Transcription can be turned on or off at your discretion, company officials said, and in addition to just the sheer time savings alone, it's much more convenient -- you can get away with checking written texts in a lot more situations than you can surreptitiously check voice mail. Especially when somebody else is in the room and that person probably shouldn't hear the message you just got. If you know what we mean, and we think you do.

 

You can forward the text versions to people a lot easier, too, and one of the best parts is you don't have to turn the music off, and it doesn't have to be perfectly quiet to get it – you're not listening to it five or six times, one finger jammed in your ear, eyes closed, nose all scrunched up, looking like a doctor's removing something painful from your body while you wish the couple arguing loudly next to you at the coffee shop wouldn't use vocal inflection as a weapon 'I said you DIDN'T TELL ME YOUR MOTHER WAS GOING TO BE THERE when we got home, now DID YOU?' just when you're trying to hear if you're supposed to bring 13 or 30 chairs.

 

We think you know what we mean. Friends, this is a feature that sells itself.

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