I’m impressed.

It wasn’t perfect, but the subject matter was very abstruse. However, it nailed all of the normal-speech parts of the conversation.

Based on experience, my guess is that most voice messages are fairly straightforward. [...]]]> One of my business lines is tied to Google Voice. Today I got a voice message that was automatically transcribed by Google.

I’m impressed.

It wasn’t perfect, but the subject matter was very abstruse. However, it nailed all of the normal-speech parts of the conversation.

Based on experience, my guess is that most voice messages are fairly straightforward. When will you be home? Is Joe coming to the meeting? Please call me back. Hi, this is Joe Blow, and I’m running for Congress.

There are two huge advantages to transcriptions.

1. You can read them on your computer or SmartPhone — and people generally read a lot faster than they listen.
2. Reading is silent; there is little more annoying than people in a conference room or shared office trying to listen to voicemail.

Transcription isn’t perfect. However, when there is low clarity, you can go back to the voice version… which isn’t always all that clear either.

We’ve come a long way since Garry Trudeau singlehandedly killed off the Apple Newton!

It started with this one.

There were more in the series, but this is considered the classic.