SpinVox Voicemail-to-Text Service To Make U.S. Debut

England-based voice-to-screen messaging service provider SpinVox today began previewing in North America its Spin-my-Vmail service, which converts voicemails to text messages that can be read on mobile handsets and within emails.

"North America is probably the most dynamic and sizeable market for voice messaging, and has the highest usage of voicemail, so it was an obvious expansion target for SpinVox.  In addition, within a few years North America is likely to surpass Europe in mobile messaging (the largest growth market in telecoms today) and will lead the very interesting convergence of wireless, Internet and VoIP messaging services," says Daniel Doulton, SpinVox co-founder and vice president of strategy and development.

Using the service "couldn't be simpler," he says. "People can now speak you a text or email when you can't answer your phone. With SpinVox you can instantly see who called and what they said; read their voice message as a text or email without having to dial into your voice mailbox, write down details or replay the message. Even better, with a press of a single button you can call, text or even email a reply straight back."

SpinVox launched the voicemail-to-text service in the United Kingdom in 2004. Since then, more than 1 million consumers in Europe have used it. The service works with any network or handset and currently supports English, Spanish, and French, with German and Italian language support coming soon.

To introduce the service in North America, SpinVox is offering a limited number of one-year "gamma" accounts of Spin-my-Vmail before it is rolled out by carriers later this year. To sign up for a gamma account, email the company at gamma@spinvox.com. Gamma accounts will provide a forum for users to better define the SpinVox experience for North American carriers.