Found out about Waxmail (www.waxmail.biz) this morning. A neat idea for those who are slow typers or prefer to communicate by voice. I tried it for the first time this morning.
Basically, this is a plug-in for MS Outlook that allows anyone with a microphone and internet connection to attach voice recordings to their outgoing emails. I liken this to the ‘send voice mail’ function on phone systems that allows people to send a voice mail, rather than directly call. In general, this ‘send voice mail’ function leaves me annoyed when I’m the recipient. You didn’t want to talk to me so you’re avoiding a conversation by leaving a voice mail?
I think attaching a voice recording makes sense for email, especially when you can blast to multiple recipients. The obvious problems are quality of recording and attachment size. I would hate to be constantly sending 1MB+ emails to people. I’m told that in most workplaces IT policies are still capping inboxes at 50MB.
It makes sense to buy a licensed version if you’re going to become a consistent user. Buy purchasing direct, the hyperlink tag is removed from the outgoing emails.
Hated it…
I used to work for a company called TalkTwo. They were doing speech to text / text to speech stuff. One of the functions of our system was to do voice attachments to email.
Hated it.
The biggest problem is the one you mention regarding size. I can send a 1kbyte email to communicate all the same information. Fact is, as a reader, I prefer to read communications over listening to a message. People talk too slowly for me. Time is money, and sending voice messages via email is a waste of both.
(Notable exception: voice greeting-card-type things. Where hearing your voice is of some value to the recipient. I’m thinking soldiers abroad and such; in situations where I’d have wanted to mail a tape, emailing a voice message makes sense.)
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Matthew P. Barnson
Problem
There’s a problem with the software. When I rename the audio file, the program is sending two attachments of the same audio recording. Given that file size is the big concern, this sort of kills the app’s feasibility.