Jott, Hold that Thought for Me

I started using Jott a while ago and then stopped using it as I was listening more and more Podcast in my car. Then Erik started using the service, which reminded me how great Jott was. Let me tell you quickly how it works:

• You create an account for yourself for free on jott.com. As part of the registration process, you need to tell them about your phone number.
• Then, you just call their free 866 number from your phone and leave a message. (Jott knows who are thanks to caller id.) Soon after, you will receive an email with the text of the your message.

Yes, Jott does voice recognition for you. If you wish, you can also listen to the audio of your message. What is amazing is that their voice recognition works stunningly well, without training. It works much better than any software I had tried in the past. What amazing voice recognition technology is Jott using? Humans! According to their FAQ:

We use a combination of machine and human transcription to convert your voice to text.

Of course, this raises concerns about privacy. There is a good chance that a human listens to every message you leave. This is one more reason for not leaving confidential information in your messages. Again, from the Jott FAQ:

Our transcribers have no way of associating your personally identifiable information with the recorded jotts they are transcribing (unless, of course, you make that information part of the recording). They operate in a “clean” environment that is also used for transcribing sensitive medical dictations, with no tools or other equipment that would allow them to record or make use of this information.