Christina Domecq is getting voxy
“You know Christina, don’t you?” I asked a chap, the other day, when we were talking about SpinVox.
“What, the ballsy one from Newsnight?” he qualified.
“That’s her.”
I’ve never met her myself. I talked to Daniel, the other co-founder (“DD”) who took me through the SpinVox story. But not Christina.
She does write to me. Me and a million+ other SpinVox users. I wanted to record their second edition of their newsletter — it contains some good stuff. Did you, for example, know that they’ve deployed service for 12 operators? Or that they’re heading into the next phase of their development plan and getting really Voxy?
Over to Christina:
It’s already time for the second edition of our e-newsletter which is designed to keep you in touch with the pace of development here at SpinVox as we lead the market that’s transforming the way people interact. Such is the pace of change, that already our newsletter has a new name ‘The Vox’ – a name that reflects how our business is evolving. But more of that later.
I’ve always believed in two business maxims: if you can’t explain your business in less than 30 seconds, you don’t have a business; and that one of the secrets for success is to focus on a single idea.
Thus the initial appeal of SpinVox was that it made it much easier for people to receive a message when they couldn’t answer, than to retrieve and listen to voicemails.
Twelve carrier deployments later, we’ve proved that we have the carrier-grade scalability to deliver real-time, accurate voice-to-text conversion on any phone, anywhere and at anytime – at a rate of thousands per minute.
We’re now ideally-placed for the next phase of delivery into our market: SpinVox services focused on delivering choice and value to the speaking ‘A’ party. That’s revolutionary – as SpinVox now becomes a network feature we can all use regardless of who we are trying to contact, or where we are calling from.
Voice-to-content will power the sort of messages that people use in their daily lives: from ‘I missed you when I called, so I Voxed you instead’; to ‘I’m busy, but I wanted to get this message to you’, and on to ‘I really want to share this moment with my social network.’
We call speaking a message a Vox. It simplifies life by using voices as the most natural and powerful way of communicating. Using Vox ensures that you can always choose how you want to create your message.
VoxMail is what you receive as text. The message arrives without it intruding on what you’re doing, and you’re given the same Vox options when you respond.
This is because every VoxMail will contain VoxLinks. These give the user the opportunity to respond by speaking a text or an email; posting a message on a social network; or even engaging Outlook to confirm an appointment.
Whether the user is the caller or the one being called, there is a single relationship through SpinVox that stimulates a natural flow of conversations, and creates new revenue opportunities for carriers.
SpinVox provides solutions to everyday communications needs that we all experience, and enables carriers to leverage existing technology and handsets and – critically – tap into existing user behaviour to help communicate and interact better. These can be delivered across the network with voice-to-text conversion as a mass-market service feature – free to receive, and at no premium to the calling party.
This increases network value: the user-experience is much more simple and natural, with obvious choices to continue conversations in ways that suit them at that time. There is also growth through messaging, and additional revenues through call-continuity and call completion – and by extending calling circles into social media spaces. SpinVox can also reduce costs, and even prompt further revenue gains, through the semantic web – or Web 3.0 as it is becoming known – by promoting the value of voice as digital content that can be stored, edited, searched and linked intelligently.
And, through brands and people-centric organisations across the globe, this principle extends to content platforms and media networks – making the human voice both immensely powerful and valuable. Whether by helping to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS by allowing people to Speak Freely about sex as part of MTV’s ‘Stand By What You Say’ campaign, or opening up the democratic process through listener engagement with New York’s WNYC on Super Tuesday, the possibilities are infinite.
That’s because the reality is that speaking remains – and will remain – the most natural way to express a thought or a feeling; while seeing is the quickest, easiest and most convenient way to receive a message or group of messages. With SpinVox, the phrase ‘I see what you’re saying’ has never been more powerful.
Christina Domecq, co-founder and CEO
