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Apps Like TwitterFone Signal the Future?

May 16th, 2008 (6:00am) Imran Ali 12 Comments

Business Week speculated on Why Twitter Matters, suggesting that its ‘large and vigorous developer community’ has already positioned the service as an innovative messaging platform.

Like other classic platform strategies, Twitter is not only providing a compelling user experience, but coupling this to a comprehensive developer toolkit.

Innovation on the Twitter platform continues with the recent launch of Cubic Telecom’s TwitterFone, a cute voice interface for Twitter, that enables users to record a short voice message using their cellphone, have the message transcribed to text and then twittered to the public timeline, including a link to the original voice message.

For Web Workers Twitterfone may seem to be nothing that can dramatically enhance productivity or mobility – unless your a mobile micro-podcaster! – but when coupled with the growing universe of Twitter applications, it’s not difficult to see its utility and value.

For example, using Twitter’s timer bot, it’s possible to quickly ‘phone’ in a time-sensitive reminder to one’s self – like refilling a parking meter. Enterprising developers are already experimenting with home automation applications using Twitter. It’s possible to envisage remote workers phoning in commands to various household appliances and systems.

A great many web workers do indeed utilise Twitter simply as a service for status updates to signal their location, the status of progress on a work task and to keep coworkers updated. It’s quite exciting to consider where such interactions may take place between human and machine and whether multi-modal voice and screen based applications will emerge from the Twitter platform.

Comments (11)

  • Your TwitterFone link is wrong. It’s twitterfone.com not twitterphone.com

    XNet6:34 AM on May 16, 2008 Reply

  • I haven’t used TwitterFone yet, but I think people might like to check out Jott for comparison. Jott is a free voice to data service that can link to Twitter, Google Calendar, Remember the Milk, I Want Sandy, etc.

    http://jott.com

    wd7:55 AM on May 16, 2008 Reply

  • Thanks, XNet. Link corrected.

    Judi Sohn7:59 AM on May 16, 2008 Reply

  • Thanks for the very nice mention Imran.
    @wd Twitterfone is a global product, we have 20 countries and growing

    pat phelan8:25 AM on May 16, 2008 Reply

  • I agree with wd. USE JOTT instead. They’ve been doing voice transcription longer, so they should be better at it. They also offer much more than Twitter functionality. I use Jott quite a bit, especially for Remember the Milk.

    Ed Roberts8:40 AM on May 16, 2008 Reply

  • Jott is only an option if you live in the US or Canada.

    Tarique Naseem8:51 AM on May 16, 2008 Reply

  • You all beat me to the punch…I use Jott too. They have done very well with the voice recognition and they have so many apps in their stable that one can link with.

    Bill Reichart9:12 AM on May 16, 2008 Reply

  • forgot to mention, we have USA and Canada also, will add Mexico next week in case you travel.
    we love Jott also though but we do only simple stuff, we leave email and all that to Jott.
    Twitterfone is for Twitter only.

    pat phelan10:33 AM on May 16, 2008 Reply

  • JOTT is NO USE if you don’t live in the US / canada … i emailed them a month ago asking about plans to cover other areas … no reply … twitterfone are in rakes of countries worldwide .. AND interact with their customers.

    eske — 2:53 PM on May 16, 2008 Reply

  • Twitterfone now has LIVE operations in
    Ireland
    UK
    USA
    Canada
    New Zealand
    Israel
    Japan
    Spain
    Italy
    Switzerland
    Belgium
    Finland
    Netherlands
    Norway
    Sweden
    Australia
    Canada
    Germany
    We will continue to add 3-4 countries per week and are aiming for 50 countries, twitter is a truly global product and twitterfone intends to follow that lead.

    pat phelan2:57 PM on May 16, 2008 Reply

  • There is something similar it is called twitsay.com! Check it out.

    Heinz G.10:28 AM on May 27, 2008 Reply

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