Think Before You Voicemail: “TechCrunch Network
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July 5, 2008
Think Before You Voicemail
Michael Arrington 153 comments »
Voicemail is dead. Please tell everyone so they’ll stop using it.
When I first started out in the real world in the mid-nineties voicemail was an important productivity tool. I remember people talking about the pros and cons of various enterprise voicemail systems – which had the best forwarding and group messaging, which allowed for archiving, and how many messages could be stored and for how long. Even though email was around, people were still unsure how to use it. Letters went on letterhead and were formal. Voicemail was informal and common. Email etiquette was still being developed. It was good for mass-forwarding jokes and moving Word, Excel, and Powerpoint files around, but it took a while for email to take over as older generations moved out of t”
(Via TechCrunch.)
I wish I had written this article. I absolutely DETEST voice mail. I never check mine, for precisely the reasons stated in the article – it’s too cumbersome and interferes with my workflow. If someone has called me, I simply check my missed calls, and dial the person back.
I understand that voice mails are still fairly popular, but I don’t really get many calls on my cell phone, and my preference would be to have something like VISUAL voice mail, where I can read the voicemail without having to listen to it.
Are you tired of voice mail, too? Or do you find it to be indispensable? Sound off in the comments below.
-Krishna
On my cell I prefer voice mail to nothing–I’m much less likely to return a call if they don’t tell me what they want. If they decide to send me an email instead, that’s fine too.
I, too, just call back if I see that I received a call. However, I do need to be careful since I often return the call and get asked “didn’t you listen to my message?” Visual voicemail would be great.
I believe mobile phones should be banned.
The world survived for eons without mobile phones and it will continue to survive without that instrument of Evil.
I never check my voicemail, but that’s mainly because it really doesn’t work on my phone. The indicator that tells me when I’ve received a voice mail message is always on and blinking whether I actually have a voicemail or not. I tried to get it fixed once, but the fix didn’t work. So, I just put a piece of scotch tape on it and colored it in with a sharpie. Problem solved. I prefer email anyway.