Copytalk: Transcription on the Go — Sadly, it’s Fatally Flawed
The idea sounds fabulous: Call a number, talk for up to 4 minutes , hang up and a human types it up and emails it to you. Call the service as often as you want.
The reality does not quite live up to the promise however.
I’ve been using the service for over a year and am now (sadly) about to drop it. The problem? Several come to mind. Here they are in order of importance:
1) Delivery takes forever (unless you’re doing the trial!) I signed up for the trial and very soon after I’d hang up, the transcription would appear in my in box. Once I became a paying customer, the lag times steadily increased. I called a transcription in yesterday around 3pm and did not receive the mail from them until after 12 noon today. As a blogger, it makes using the service for timely posts impossible.
2) It’s too expensive. 80 bucks a month(!) If anyone knows of a less pricey alternative that provides more than 30 seconds of talk time, let me know.
3) Inconsistent results. Some texts come in with proper interpretation of what I say, others come in riddled with errors.
1 and 3 are permissible, but not when 2 exists. This is an awesome free service, it’s just a lousy $80 a month service. My two cents.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
My experience with Copytalk is almost diametrically opposed to what you are saying. I had a problem once and contacted the customer service folks and it was corrected. Lag times for transcriptions have been consistant for 1 to 3 hours or so. I deal with a fellow named chris.
I don’t think I’ve seen 1 to 3 hour turnarounds since my trial period ended. My last one was 20 plus hours…
How long does it take to transcribe something? You can generally multiple the time of your recording by a factor of four to have a general idea of how long a transcription takes. Therefore, if you recorded 15 minutes of speech, you should expect someone on the other side will spend up to an hour transcribing your speech. To keep costs low, my guess is that the transcribers are outsourced (to India or wherever), but nevertheless time is money. The price of $80 per month is too low, which is probably why the service is so slow.
Leave a Comment