Tools

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.