As part of my ongoing productivity enhancing voice services revamp I am officially dropping Simulscribe in favor of Ribbit. If you aren’t aware of Ribbit, it is a voice service that does call routing, find me on multiple numbers, voicemail transcription, memo transcription, and more. If things go well I might even get rid of Jott as well in favor of just using Ribbit’s memo dictation feature.
I’ve been a loyal Simulscribe user for a long time, several years at least although I cannot remember precisely when I entered the glorious world of voicemail transcription. That said, there are several reasons why I believe that Simulscribe is on the down swing, at least for its direct customers, and why Ribbit is my solution for now.
First, I have not seen any enhancements or improvements in the UX in quite a while and it seems like all development has stalled in the customer facing application. One might notice that their website still lists 2008 as the active copyright year and as a matter of fact I don’t think the site’s changed since then. That’s really sad considering the level of innovation that’s taken place in the last two years in many spaces – social, voice, collaboration and productivity just to name a few. It’s apparent that Simulscribe’s deal with Ditech Networks was good for Simulscribe but not so good for its users, which will ultimately not be good for them as customers jump ship to Ribbit or Google Voice.
Ribbit’s UX is clean, efficient and social – much more of a Web 2.0 application which is the least we should expect for this kind of service. That said, I don’t envision myself interacting with their site too much so what they have is more than good enough for me.
Second, I have found that Simulscribe’s transcription quality has been steadily decreasing. This was particularly shocking considering their deal with Ditech provided them with cash, a user base, and the opportunity to really scale their platform. I haven’t seen evidence of improvements yet. As for Ribbit, I have been pleased with their transcriptions so far – at least as good as Simulscribe’s – but only time will tell how good it is. I am optimistic though.
Finally, I’ve been frustrated for a while about the Simulscribe lack of experience on the iPhone as an old and completely unaddressed complaint spoke to. To recap, iPhone integration Is non-existent, and actually problematic if you get a bad transcription and need to listen to the actual message (see my complaint). Naturally I have been longing for a native iPhone app.
So far, this is where Ribbit really shines. Their native iPhone app is really slick and addresses all of my requirements for a voice companion application. As you can see from the subsequent screenshots, the options are obvious, efficient, and simple to get at.
The main message screen:
A detailed voicemail with transcription, play message button, quick speakerphone access, add contact, call back, sms, email, new “to call” and trash all cleanly laid out.
Alert options for missed calls and voicemails
SMS options for new voicemails (and missed calls)
Email options missed calls and transcription attachment options
Even IM alerts for MSN, Google Talk and Skype
Needless to say I am pleased with everything Ribbit has thrown my way, and when they emerge from beta they’ll supposedly have three plans free/$10 per month/$30 per month and the free would greatly surpass what Phonetag/Simulscribe offer and even give me some of Jott’s features without their 15 seconds max recording limit.
