When pondering the meaning of visual voicemail, it’s easy to get lost in concept. Simply put, it’s the ability to see and organize your voice messages. Visual voicemail enables you to interact with your voice messages a lot like how you interact with text messages or emails.
In this article, we cover:
- How visual voicemail works
- The advent of visual voicemail
- How YouMail visual voicemail is better than what you already have
How Visual Voicemail Works
It all starts with voicemail to text. Voicemail to text is like having a stenographer on stand-by to convert each call on your answering machine into text (for those under 40, this statement may sound like complete gibberish). That is, technology is used to transcribe audible voicemail to viewable text. Voicemail to text technology is like the advent of the alphabet. Before the A-B-C’s were concocted, language was a series of sounds and grunts. The alphabet pulled language out of our throats and placed it onto cave walls to be pointed at, pondered over, and eventually made into ‘dank gifs’.
Voicemail to text makes language tangible. Text messages are tangible, so to speak. While a text isn’t something you can pick up, smell, and throw across a room, you can tap, copy, delete, or choose not to answer it (sorry Mom). You get the same power and tangibility of texting with visual voicemail.
Once converted to text, voice messages can be managed on screen with visual voicemail. Visual voicemail is the technology that allows users to analyze, share, and take appropriate action with voice messages at their discretion.
Another apt analogy is the evolution of how we listen to music. When 8-tracks and cassette tapes were a thing back in the ’70s and ’80s, you were stuck listening to every track on an album, in order. Don’t like a song? Too bad, you either had to stick it out (8-track) or skillfully toggle the fast-forward and rewind buttons to find the beginning of the next song. Those days were analog, linear, and dark. By the time we evolved to mp3s and iPods, we could pick our jams, song by song, at our leisure. Now we are digital, highly customizable, and enlightened.
Steve Jobs Reinvents the Phone, YouMail Reinvents Voicemail
Visual voicemail has been around quite a while. It was introduced to the mainstream with much fanfare alongside the original iPhone back in 2007. Yes, visual voicemail was one of the original killer features on the jewel of Apple’s crown. Back then, visual voicemail was stored on the mobile carrier’s network, at first on the carrier side with (exclusive iPhone carrier) AT&T, but later with all the major carriers as well, including Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile.
At the same time that Steve Jobs introduced us to our new smartphone-centric way of life, YouMail became the first third-party, multiplatform visual voicemail service for mobile phones. It stored voicemails on the cloud rather than the carrier’s network, and provided access through any web browser or by email. Pretty revolutionary stuff. By 2009, YouMail extended its visual voicemail service to BlackBerry, iPhone, and Android through its app, and Windows Phone and WebOS via API (remember Windows Phones?).
That is to say, YouMail was early to the party. As in, we helped put up the decorations and fix the hors d’oeuvres way before guests started to arrive. So we think it’s safe to say that we have a deep understanding of the nuts and bolts of visual voicemail.
Nowadays, pretty much everyone with a smartphone has access to baked-in visual voicemail features. YouMail visual voicemail, however, unlocks its full potential.
How Visual Voicemail Helps in the Fight Against Robocalls — And Your Crazy Ex
Which brings us to this current moment in time. In 2019, Americans received 58.5 billion robocalls. In April 2020 alone, 2.9 billion robocalls were placed nationwide. For reference, there are “only” about 7.8 billion humans on Earth. Fortunately, YouMail leverages its expertise in helping people screen calls to fight this wild outbreak of robocalls — it may remind you of another scourge the world has been dealing with lately.
YouMail possesses the technology to stop robocalls forever. Its patented technology cross-references incoming calls against a library of more than 100,000 “bad” numbers. Bad numbers are automatically answered with a “this number is not in service” greeting that removes your number from their target lists forever.
In addition to diverting, screening, and heading off robocalls, YouMail visual voicemail lets you access your voicemails from any device. For no charge, you can store up to at 100 messages, saved forever in the cloud and organized into folders. YouMail also features high-quality voicemail-to-text and voicemail-to-email (a limited amount with the free service; unlimited with paid plans), phone number blocking, and reverse phone lookup. You can even set custom voicemail greetings for specific callers. Your greetings can address callers by name, or even brick-wall your crazy ex- with the “this number is not in service” greeting.
The world is your oyster. Get started.
Get Started with Visual Voicemail