Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Jott - The Ultimate Speech Self Service Application

While I'm a strong believer in using speech recognition, I'm not easily given over to hyperbole about speech applications. Frankly I find too few applications that wow me with their simplicty, their elegance or their usefulness. Even less frequently do I run across one that I find useful enough that I actually put the number in my cell phone's dialing directory (yes, it's speech enabled) and use often. That said, I've become addicited to Jott!

For those of you who haven't yet run across it, Jott is the brain child of a Seattle based company, Jott Networks that operates a voice to text service that makes staying organized and in touch easy. Simply put, Jott converts your voice into emails, text messages, reminders, lists and appointments.

After signing up for Jott's service at thier web site, you simply call the toll free number and your account is recognized from your caller ID information. The application asks you "Who you want to Jott", recognizes that request and then records your message. After recording your message, it is passed through a speech recognition process to convert it to text then sent on to the person, application or list you specified. It's an elegantly simple interface, that's intuitive and easy to use.

I use Jott to save reminder messages to myself, keep a record of business expenses and vehicle mileage throughout the day and add entries to my calendar without the need to pull out my laptop and find a WiFi connection. It's also great for sending "To Do" list items to my family members or co-workers. Direct application links are provided to dozens of tools like Google Calendar, Blogger, Twitter and many more so that your Jott's can be sent directly to them. They have a developer's site so that you can develope web service links to other applications that aren't already provided also.

I find it especially useful from my cell phone since it's user interface requires no use of hands, so with my headset I'm completely hands free for the entire transaction.

For you iPhone addicts, Jott has just added a mobile notepad that turns your voice into notes on your iPhone. It's available for download on Apple's App Store and their's a link to it on Jott's website at www.jott.com