Archive for the ‘Features’ Category

Not all voice to text transcriptions are created equal.

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010 | located in Features | 2 Comments »

So you’ve decided that this whole reading voicemail thing is a pretty good idea.  How great would it be to not have to listen to an endless string of rambling messages? You think, “I’m ready.  Sign me up!”

But then you find out that there’s more than one company with their hat in the ring.  Which do you choose? I mean, how different can they really be? The answer: very different. If you’ve done any research on voicemail transcription services, you’ve undoubtedly seen that some of these services are quite costly.  Others only transcribe a portion of your message and then charge you more to get the rest.

More important to me than cost, though, is accuracy.  When you get a voicemail as a text or email and read it, shouldn’t it say the same thing as the original voice message?  Shouldn’t it at least resemble the original message?  This is where Ribbit Mobile excels.  Ribbit Mobile offers users two options for transcription: a fully automated voice-to-text transcription service, or human-assisted transcriptions for greater accuracy.  If certain words can’t be confidently identified, the transcription service will suggest what it thinks the correct word or phrase is, then set it apart in parentheses.

But I’m not the only fan of Ribbit Mobile transcription.  This comment recently appeared on Twitter:

“Ribbit Mobile converted my distant, un-humanly recognizable voicemail into text w/85% accuracy. I’m impressed!”

If you have to spend more time trying to decipher the transcription than it would take to dial in and listen to the voicemail, then what good is the service?  While Ribbit Mobile isn’t perfect every time, one user describes it as “scary good.”

If the accuracy of your messages matters to you, and if you want to save the time and hassle of dialing into voicemail, then the quality of Ribbit Mobile transcriptions can make all the difference.

Who’s Greeting Your Callers?

Wednesday, April 14th, 2010 | located in Features | No Comments »

Ring, ring.  Click.  “Hello, you’ve reached Jane Doe.  I’m not available to take your call right now.  Please leave your name, number, and a brief message, and I will get back to you as soon as I can.  Thank you and have a great day.” Beep.

YAWN!  How many times have you heard this message?  Well, maybe not this exact one, but a reasonable facsimile.  Just substitute any number of names, and you have the standard voicemail greeting. While there must be some sense of uniformity in many business practices, is there really any good reason to have an outgoing message that puts your clients to sleep?  Worse yet, is there any reason to have such a bland message on your personal voicemail?  In a world where everything you say, post, or tweet tells everyone who you are and what’s on your mind, why would you resort to a generic, uninspired, easy-way-out message?

I must admit that I am guilty of having used the automated she-bot voicemail message that records my name and takes care of the rest. I did it because I was lazy.  But is that the impression I want to give my callers?  While mulling over this depersonalized message epidemic, I was alerted to this little gem, featuring a creatively appropriate outgoing message.  The man behind this makes some great points about gearing your message toward the image and attitude of your company.

As for your personal voicemail, why not give your callers a little taste of your personality?  That’s not to say that you should record a lengthy, badly-acted scenario with a barely identifiable audio track in the background.  That’s just annoying.  But you can explore your creativity in 10 seconds or less.

So, you’ve come up with a perfect outgoing message that is quintessentially you.  You’ve recorded it, gotten numerous compliments, and now think: “I’m never changing this message.”  Until something comes up.  Maybe you are going on vacation and need to alert callers.  Maybe you’re involved in a project that you need to leave special information about.  If only you could save your fantastic message to use again later…

Ribbit Mobile allows you to record and store different voicemail greetings for future use.  Now you don’t have to record the same things over and over, and having these greetings at your fingertips certainly makes life easier when you’re on the go.  Which gives you more time to think up your next great recording!

Take Back Your ‘Voicemail’ Messages

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 | located in Features | No Comments »

Has this happened to you? Someone left you an awesome voicemail message – funny, sweet, or otherwise memorable – and you saved it so that you could listen to it again later. Then life got busy, and when you finally dialed back into your voicemail box to listen to the message, it was gone.

It’s happened to all of us at one time or another, and it’s just one of the reasons we’re through with carrier voicemail. Not only are we fed up with having our messages automatically deleted after 21 days, we’re also tired of dialing into a remote voicemail box to listen to our messages and not being able to share them or access them easily.

That’s why one of our favorite Ribbit Mobile features is the online message inbox – a single place where you can read or listen to your messages in whatever order you want. You can sort your messages by sender; you can even search for words or phrases if you want to find one particular voicemail. And best of all: you can save your messages as long as you want to.

So next time your best friend calls and sings Happy Birthday on your voicemail, or your colleague leaves client information that you’ll need for future reference… you can be confident that those messages will be there for you, as long as you need them.

Isn’t that the way it SHOULD be? They’re your messages, after all…

If you could get back one voicemail that was lost… what would it be?

Start your engines: Sprint is now supported!

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 | located in Features | No Comments »

Great news!  Sprint customers can now sign up for Ribbit Mobile.  Sprint made this possible by dropping their per-minute call forwarding fees and allowing their customers to activate call forwarding on their mobile phones.

What does this mean?
Sprint customers can now enjoy all the benefits of Ribbit Mobile.  After a short set-up process that connects your phone to Ribbit, you’ll be ready to go! Your phone will still work the same way it always has; the only change is that when you don’t answer an incoming call, that call will be forwarded to Ribbit. Ribbit will then direct the call based on your preferences. For instance, you can choose to have incoming calls ring on other phones, such as your home or office phone. If you don’t answer and your caller leaves a message, Ribbit will convert the voicemail into text.

Ribbit will send you the transcribed version of your new voicemail via text message or email - so you can scan it quickly, wherever you are. You can also listen to the message if you choose. All your messages are available online for you to view or listen to whenever you want. No more messages disappearing after 21 days! A Ribbit account also includes features such as text messaging, browser based calling, and Caller ID 2.0 which connects with your Twitter, Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr communities.  You can log in to the account page from your computer at www.ribbit.com/mobile or on your smart phone at m.ribbit.com.

Next time you’re at the racetrack or in a meeting, you can stop worrying about missing calls - just read and reply to to your messages as they arrive without missing a beat.

Sign up today.

Carrier Support:  In the US, Ribbit also supports AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile.

No phone? No service? No problem.

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 | located in Features | No Comments »

My iPhone is generally fairly reliable, but wouldn’t you know it – it suddenly turned wonky on a weekend when I had a big project due. I didn’t have the time to take my phone in for troubleshooting, but I HAD to know who was calling, and HAD have access to my messages.

Cue Ribbit Mobile. I simply logged into my account online to see who had called, and who had left me a message. Throughout the weekend, I was able to check my missed calls, read my messages, and make calls via the web-based phone. Since I have my preferences set to use my mobile number as my Caller ID, the people I was calling knew it was me on the other line.

It’s the little things that matter… and having a backup phone through Ribbit Mobile made what could have been a very stressful weekend a relatively calm one.

This feature even comes in handy when my iPhone is perfectly well behaved. My parents live in a rural area, where mobile coverage is iffy at best; going to visit them was always somewhat stressful, as I was almost guaranteed to miss important calls. But they do get internet, so now I can extend my visits, knowing that I can still access all my phone communications online through Ribbit Mobile. It sure makes my mom happy…

Where would you go more often if you didn’t have to worry about losing service on your mobile phone?

10 Ways to Use Ribbit Mobile in 2010

Thursday, January 14th, 2010 | located in Features, How To | No Comments »

Happy New Year!  We wanted to take a moment to celebrate this new decade with you by sharing 10 ways you can use Ribbit Mobile in 2010.

1. Read your voicemail like email
Business-grade voicemail transcriptions are the #1 reason people use Ribbit Mobile today.  We’ve heard positive feedback about our transcription quality, and iPhone users were thrilled when we released our first mobile app.  Sign up today, link your mobile phone, and enjoy all the benefits of having your voicemail messages transcribed to text and sent directly to your phone.

2. Make and receive calls, even in areas with poor mobile coverage
If you have poor mobile phone coverage at home or at work, Ribbit can help. In your Ribbit Mobile account, you can easily set up a new IP/Internet Phone (VoIP) phone or route your mobile calls to any of your existing phones. For instance - if you’re heading up to the mountains for a ski weekend but worry about having no mobile coverage, Ribbit can route calls to your mobile phone to ring the phone at your destination.

Here’s how: after you activate Ribbit on your mobile phone, you can add additional phones. From the Quick Links menu at the top of the account page, select Add Phones & Numbers and then select the type of phone you want to add.  Once you’d added your phone, setup your call routing profile.  All inbound calls to Ribbit will then be routed to all the phones you’ve set to Ring.

3. Get a local number to assist with a job search
If you’re looking for a job in 2010, you may be given higher priority if you’re local to where you’re seeking work. Why not include a local number on your resume? Simply log in to Ribbit Mobile and request a Ribbit Mobile number for your account in the area code where you’re searching.

4. Set up a dedicated sales hotline
Need a sales hotline for your customers? Set up a Ribbit Number dedicated to sales calls. If sales calls are handled by more than one person, add each of their phone numbers in the call routing profile. If a call isn’t answered, Ribbit will take a message and transcribe it to text, so you’ll have more information about the caller before you you respond.

5. Create a company support line
Need an efficient way to handle support? Here’s a great solution: first, set up a Ribbit Number to use as your support line.  Then set up call routing so that your available support team can answer live support calls. For times when calls cannot be answered, set email and/or SMS (text) notifications to go to all the right people so your collective team can respond quickly.

6. Add a virtual “messages only” number
It can be very useful to have a phone number that only receives messages. Simply get a Ribbit Number and set up alerts to receive both text transcriptions and audio files of the messages via email and/or SMS (text).

7. Set up a “Parent Finder” number
Do your children have to dial multiple numbers when they need to get in touch with mom or dad? A great solution is to set up a Ribbit Number to dial all mom and dad’s phones… simple and effective.

8. Make and send Group or Company announcements via MP3
Now you can quickly and easily send audio announcements to your entire group or company. Set up a new Ribbit Mobile account, add a Ribbit Number to the account, then set up notifications for all message recipients. To do this, add each email recipient’s address or set up an email distribution list and add that distribution list as a single notification email.  To create the audio message, call your Ribbit Number from any phone and leave a “voicemail” - this message will be sent to your entire group or company via MP3 and text.

9. Make conference calls fast
Need to create instant group calls on the fly? Try out our Conference Now app - simply go to apps.ribbit.com and select the Conference Now app.  Post it to your iGoogle page (everyone has one).  Then, log in to the app with your Ribbit Mobile account and enter up to five numbers, including you that you want to call.  Click Start. The app will dial all the numbers at once.

10.  Call home from all around the globe
Ribbit lets you make calls over the internet, which is especially handy when you’re out of your mobile service area - such as traveling in a distant country, or in the sky with WiFi.  Sign in to Ribbit Mobile and use the Flash phone to make calls to any US phone (international calling will be open once we’re out of beta).  And best of all, you can use your mobile Caller ID so the person you’re calling will know who is on the other line.

We know there are many more ways to use Ribbit Mobile, and we look forward to learning from you in 2010.

Ribbit Mobile iPhone App Now Available

Monday, December 21st, 2009 | located in Applications, Features | 5 Comments »

Over the weekend, the team at Ribbit Mobile received a great holiday present - the news that Apple approved our app! The entire Ribbit team has been eagerly anticipating this development, and we are delighted to let you know that the app is now available in both the US and UK Apple App stores.

If you don’t have it yet, you can download the app here: Ribbit Mobile iPhone App

With this new app, iPhone users can enjoy the benefits of Ribbit Mobile more easily than ever before. Here are a few highlights:

Read your voicemail. Ribbit transcribes your messages to text, so you can either read them or listen to them. Rotate your iPhone 90 degrees for “read mode”  to see the entire message and easily scroll through other messages.

Share your voicemail. Want to share a message with a friend or colleague? Simply select the message, click on the envelope icon, and choose “forward.” Choose an email address from your address book, or type in a new address. Click Send.

Listen and Reply. In the message detail view, you can play the audio message as well as see recent messages from the same caller. If you want to reply, use any of the reply buttons in the action bar.

Features you will love:

• Call:  Dials the person who called you, using your iPhone
• SMS:  Gives you an SMS window, using your iPhone SMS app
• Shout:  Lets you record a short voice message and send it via email
• To-Call:  Add the caller to your to-call list, so you can be reminded to return the call

We hope you enjoy using the new iPhone app!

If you find a bug, please report it to support@ribbit.com.  And be sure to post your ideas on our idea wall so we can make Ribbit Mobile even better in the future.

Ribbit Numbers, Importing Contacts, and Cast Your Vote for Ribbit!

Thursday, December 17th, 2009 | located in Contest, Features | No Comments »

Ribbit Numbers are now available
Are you planning a special event, setting up an online profile, or doing business in more than one location? Get a free Ribbit Number! Here’s how:

• Sign in to your account.
• Click Settings > Phones & Numbers > Add Phones & Numbers > Ribbit Number.
• Choose your number, and you’re set.

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Want to import your contacts?
Ribbit supports quick contacts import with Plaxo. Just sign up for a free Plaxo account and import your Google, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail, LinkedIn, Mac or Outlook contacts. Then sign in to Ribbit Mobile and import your Plaxo contacts. It’s that easy! Learn more about importing from Plaxo.

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Cast Your Vote for Ribbit!
Ribbit has been nominated as one of the top 100 web products for 2009 in Read Write Web’s annual contest. The contest is almost over, and we would LOVE your help in casting a vote to get us in the Top 10 companies announced at the end of this week. Vote for Ribbit now.

And if you get a wild hair in you…and you have a Twitter account…how about tweeting your vote! For instance: I just voted for @Ribbit in @rww’s Favorite Web Product of 2009 contest! You can too: http://su.pr/9oK6a1

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Need Help?
Please visit us online at www.ribbit.com/mobile/support or contact us via email at support@ribbit.com or 1-800-474-2248 (US).

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Thanks so much for your enthusiasm and encouragement over the past few weeks! We appreciate your patience while we’re in beta, and we’re excited about what the upcoming year will bring.

Simplify Your Life with Call Routing

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009 | located in Features | 1 Comment »

One of our favorite Ribbit Mobile features is the ability to route your calls so that you can answer wherever it’s most convenient.

Here are a few ways people are using call routing:

• Small business owners who need more flexibility, while staying connected to the business. When you own a small business, you need a dedicated number that you can list in directories, promotional materials, and online. But if that number is connected to a landline phone, chances are you won’t always be able to answer it. Routing calls from your business line to your mobile provides instant peace of mind, ensuring that you won’t miss important calls.
• People who want the freedom to be away from their desk without missing calls. If you get calls on an office phone at work, you risk missing important calls when you’re away from your desk. Now you can route your office phone to ring on your mobile. If you don’t pick up, Ribbit will convert the voicemail message to text and send it to directly to your mobile phone and email.
• People who are traveling to areas with poor mobile coverage. Want to get away to the beach or the ski slopes, but worry that you’ll miss calls due to poor mobile coverage? Just route your mobile to ring at your destination. Then you’ll still get your calls – and your vacation, too.

Have you used Ribbit Mobile’s call routing, and if so – why?

Caller ID 2.0 powered by LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Flickr

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009 | located in Features | 1 Comment »

Phones are by nature social so when we decided to turn your browser into a phone we couldn’t resist bringing together the callers social feeds with the phone call - and inventing Caller ID 2.0. When a call comes in, Ribbit Mobile will reach into the social web and bring you the recent LinkedIn updates, Facebook updates, Tweets, and Flickr photos of the person calling you. Ribbit Mobile lets you know not just who is calling but what the caller has been up to on the web.

In the settings, members enter Linked In, Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr credentials (securely with OAuth, of course) and Ribbit Mobile takes care of the rest by looking into the members accounts and finding matches as calls are made. If more than one match is found, Ribbit Mobile will ask you to select the right person.

Are there other social feeds you’d like us to include in our Caller ID 2.0 feature? Post your suggestions in the comments below, or add them to the ideawall. We’d love to expand this feature out and appreciate any feedback you have.