Spicing Up Voicemail: YouMail

[Jon Westfall]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.youmail.com/' target='_blank'>http://www.youmail.com/</a><br /><br /></div><i>"YouMail is the new voicemail for cell phones. Among many features, it allows you to record unique voice greetings for anyone who calls you, based on their caller ID. Individualize your voice greetings for friends, family or important callers while maintaining a standard greeting for work and unknown callers. Check your voice messages from any phone or via the web and forward favorite messages to anyone via email. Have fun with the already infamous DITCHMAIL feature that hangs up on unwanted callers after your custom greeting for them is played."</i><br /><br />If you're still using your boring old cell-phone provider voicemail, then you may want to check out YouMail, with it's innovative features and ability to forward voicemails to email. While it may be more appropriate for a wild &amp; crazy person who wants to personalize voicemail for each person, it may also be good for leaving important messages for certain friends and family. Personally, I've been using <a href="http://www.callwave.com/landing/cfc2Offer.asp">CallWave</a> for my voicemail for almost a year and have been very happy with their free service as well. But it's a tough choice - stick with CallWave or go to YouMail!

[after_forever]

How can CallWave afford to give away this service for free? What's the catch?
From the web sites FAQ it states there are no catches and no ads. But I am weary about giving out my number to a site and having them sell it to some darn spammer. Jon, you say you have used this service for about a year now, have you received any unusual messages or calls? How occasionally does CallWave send you announcements and promotions for other CallWave affiliated services?

I would like to try this service out but want to get other inputs

TIA
After Forever

[Jon Westfall]

How can CallWave afford to give away this service for free? What's the catch?
From the web sites FAQ it states there are no catches and no ads. But I am weary about giving out my number to a site and having them sell it to some darn spammer. Jon, you say you have used this service for about a year now, have you received any unusual messages or calls? How occasionally does CallWave send you announcements and promotions for other CallWave affiliated services?

I would like to try this service out but want to get other inputs

TIA
After Forever

Actually, I've never gotten any announcements or promotions from CallWave and haven't seen any increase in Spam on my email accounts. I have never received telemarketing calls on my cell phone, so they aren't selling my number either. I'm not sure exactly how they fund their operations, but it looks like their pay-options must be generating enough revenue so far, at least, because they aren't resorting to annoying tactics to try to get $$$ from me.

[del1313]

Any idea how these services compare to http://www.grandcentral.com/ ??

I signed up with them yesterday, although I haven't been able to test much so far.

[bigray327]

I gave both a test run today and decided to go with YouMail. Here's why:

Personalized greetings for each caller. CallWave doesn't offer that.
No double calling. The original caller calls me, then CallWave calls me. Annoying. I'm sure it can be changed but that's the default CallWave setting.
Ability to listen to voicemails via website without installing an application. This means I can get at them from anywhere, not just the PC I have the app installed on.
Hot British babe accent during the setup. :)

Undesirable stuff about YouMail so far:
No automatic forwarding of recorded message to email, as far as I can tell. Still looking for a setting to tweak.
Can't listen in to voicemails live.
I get the impression it won't be free forever.

Any idea how these services compare to http://www.grandcentral.com/ ??
That site limits you to 100 minutes per month on their free account. Ten times that might suffice! :)

Very cool. Thanks for the links, I didn't even know such a thing existed.

[Jon Westfall]

I gave both a test run today and decided to go with YouMail. Here's why:

Personalized greetings for each caller. CallWave doesn't offer that.
No double calling. The original caller calls me, then CallWave calls me. Annoying. I'm sure it can be changed but that's the default CallWave setting.
Ability to listen to voicemails via website without installing an application. This means I can get at them from anywhere, not just the PC I have the app installed on.


I'd like the personalized greetings, but CallWave has the automatic voicemail forwarding and that's what I find essential. For callwave, there was no app I had to install - I just get my voicemails emailed to me as WAV files, so anywhere I have access to email I have my voicemail. You can also turn off the callback feature, so you don't get double calls.

[beedee]

May be this is just too much tech for me. But how do these things work? Somebody calls my cellnumber so my cell rings. If I dont pick up the phone or are busy, my cell-provider's voicemail kicks in and caller can leave a voicemail for me. How can a web-service come in here??? I just don't get the picture!

[Certs]

These services look very cool and I'm so excited to take it for a test drive but one question I have that'll make me take the plunge or abandon it altogether is: With any of these services, when the calls are transfered to another location or when you take a call online, are these cell minutes I'll be using? These minutes can definitely add up after a while. For those who have been using this service, please shed some light.

[Jon Westfall]

The services simply give you instructions for unhooking your cell phone provider's voicemail and redirecting to their service. I don't recall ever seeing it take up cell minutes, I believe it the cell network just redirects - but check with your provider if you're concerned.

[amg]

The services simply give you instructions for unhooking your cell phone provider's voicemail and redirecting to their service. I don't recall ever seeing it take up cell minutes, I believe it the cell network just redirects - but check with your provider if you're concerned.

When using youmail, an incoming call that goes to voicemail is charged as a forwarded call to a 949 area code. If you are charged long distance on your rate plan, that might apply here. If your carrier charges for forwarded calls the same as calls you place (e.g., Cingular) you will be hit for an airtime minute for each minute of forwarded VM calls. I think with Cingular you don't get hit for airtime when calls get forwarded to Cingular voicemail.