Jott: call in your to-dos, have them transcribed and sent via e-mail

I'm continuing to look for productivity apps and services while I'm on the run; today I found Jott, a free beta. Jott is touted as a mobile note taker because you never need to write or type your note. Instead, you call in to a toll-free number (U.S and Canada only for the beta) and speak your note, task, or reminder. Your spoken word is then transcribed into an e-mail that can be sent to you, one of your contacts or a group of people in your contacts. It's that simple and sounds like a great way to keep track of important items and tasks when you're on the road.

Comments

[Greg]

I've been using Jott for the last several months and it has been a lifesaver (in some cases literally, as I tried to make a note of something while driving in traffic). Sure, you can do the same thing with voice mail or a voice recorder, but then you have to remember to play those back and transcribe it. To me that was always a hassle.

A couple of links that might be of interest:

Creating My ToDo List Through Jott And Gmail
http://studentlinc.typepad.com/studentlinc/2007/03/creating_my_tod.html

Don't forget, Jott it with your cell phone
http://www.podtech.net/home/2409/dont-forget-jott-it-with-your-cell-phone

The last one includes an interview with the founders of Jott.

One thing of interest (or concern depending on your level of paranoia) is that apparently the transcription is not completely done by machine - there is some human intervention. However, my notes on the location of a new restaurant or my reminder to pick up the dry cleaning is probably not that much of an interest to others.

[jfl]

Wow, worked flawlessly on the first attempt. I signed up & set up my account completely from my iPhone, which even if it does get Exchange Activesync OTA functionality, likely won't get task syncability. So, this tool could at least partially replace that productivity gap for me since leaving the WM platform.....

[dan]

been using it for a couple of weeksnow and love it. it is one of those rare services that, within a day of trying it, I knew I would use as a fee service after the beta. a great service.

[Richard]

Tried it last night and yes it works very well. Excepted for us in Montreal, even though it is adveertised as available in Canada, the free number does not work here, I have to dial long distance to Toronto... Not quite there yet!

[Thomas R. Hall]

I used to use Jott a lot, but as Greg mentioned, they use people to transcribe the voice requests. Instead, I use SimulScribe [1] now, which is done via computer (not human beings) and accurate. Even the words it cannot determine, it denotes differently and puts in a phonetic guess, and it also attaches the original in MP3, WAV, or a few other formats so you can listen to the original as well.

Also, they have a free application for the BlackBerry called SimulSays [2] that will let you get messages in a visual voicemail format directly to your BlackBerry without having to receive it first via email.

Unfortunately, it's a pay application, but the accuracy is excellent. They also have their technology integrated in with other providers. Vonage, for example, offers it as an option on their voicemail product.

I've commented a bit about this already [3, 4] over at Keener Living. No relationship with SimulScribe, just really like their technology.

[1]: SimulScribe - http://www.simulscribe.com/
[2]: SimulSays - http://www.simulsays.com/
[3]: http://www.keenerliving.com/2007/04/30/jott-it-down-anytime-anywhere/
[4]: http://www.keenerliving.com/2007/05/11/voiceminder-send-reminders-to-yourself/#comment-178

[Jeremy]

I've heard some people joke about how the transcribers can have fun and "accidently" type in something else other than what was really said....example "Mike Hunt"....and you can probably guess what this leads to. hahaha. BUT I've done research myself before I signed up for Jott, and there isn't no worries. Jott thought and worked out security and legal issues before they released their beta version to ensure ones peace of mind using Jott. Also FYI...Jott uses voice recognition software on top of human transcribers. I heard somewhere that the more you use Jott, the better the transcription is. Overall for me, Jott has served me well. I love using it driving, and for my music (musicians...try it out when you have a guitar riff in your head and not at your guitar!). Happy jotting people!