.FLYINGHEAD PRODUCT SHOOTOUT
.TITLE Jott versus SpinVox: A voice-to-text battle royal
.AUTHOR Dianah McDonald
.SUMMARY Dianah McDonald takes a look at two competitive voice-to-text services. They work the same way. You dial a number, speak some instruction into the phone, and the result is texted, emailed, or otherwise communicated to the appropriate destination. Or is it? Read this fun review and you’ll learn if either service is voice-to-text nirvana or not-ready-for-prime-time.
.OTHER
I have the memory span of a hamster. I’m not the only one who thinks so. One of my iPhone-addicted friends espoused the benefits of the Jott application saying it was just the thing for me. I could just tell the phone what I needed to remember and it would email me the note.
I balked.
I had tried leaving myself voicemails and having those transcribed to email, but the accuracy had been abysmal. That was some time ago, though, and technology marches on.
We spent a few minutes playing with the Jott app and I was impressed. Remembering my previous voicemail tests, I wondered if SpinVox had a similar option. They did. Rather than simply testing each to see which worked best for me I decided to pit the two voice-to-text options against each other.
.H1 Ladies and Gentlemen: the combatants
Jott (at http://www.jott.com) promises to "turn your words into action". You can use Jott to create reminders, add items to a calendar, update your blog, or ask Amazon to email you results of a search – a feature I think sounds absolutely awful, but somebody somewhere must have thought it was a good idea.
With a premium account you can speak updates to sites such as Google Calendar, Yahoo! Groups, and even I Want Sandy (a personal assistant service). In theory you could combine Jott with something like I Want Sandy and create a virtual personal assistant to keep track of all your appointments, to-do lists, and notes.
And in this corner we have SpinVox (at http://www.spinvox.com), the company I automatically associate with voicemail to email technology. Depending on your phone carrier, SpinVox can convert voicemails, create notes, update blogs, send text messages.
SpinVox even has a feature called "Blast" where you speak a message that is then sent to a preset group, directly to their phones or emails. I could simply call the SpinVox number and say, "Don’t come to the cafe! Creepy Ron is here!" and it would go to Brandice’s phone, Renee’s email, and both Sam’s phone and email – so all could be appropriately warned with just one phone call.
I’m sure somebody somewhere thinks that’s an awful idea, but I love it. SpinVox doesn’t currently integrate with as many social networks or Web apps as Jott, so no abusive phone calls to your virtual assistant.
.H1 The battle of the voice-to-text teams
While both products have cool features and add-ons, all I really need is a simple tool to take my short messages like "Write article for that brilliant editor, David G at ZATZ by Monday", convert it into text, and put it someplace I won’t lose it – something to replace my illegibly scribbled, usually misplaced sticky notes. Points will be awarded based on ease of use, accuracy, and speed.
.H2 Round 1: account creation
You’ve created a brilliant product and people are beating down your web portal to try it! You’ve made one mistake. You’ve made the process to sign up for your product difficult or time consuming. After development and marketing have created exactly what the consumer wants, why do so many companies let a different group create the application process? This is one of my biggest pet peeves.
Signing up for a service should be an extension of how wonderful and easy to use the product is.
Jott wasn’t too bad to set up. After the usual general info questions, an email is sent to your account with a link to click for activation. From clicking "Get Started" to having Jott available for use took 14 minutes. The confirmation of activation email includes the telephone number to call to record my memo and several links to tutorials, FAQs, and their blog.
SpinVox, however, was exceptional. Right on the homepage it asks me what I want to do and who my carrier is. No wading through a confusing myriad of options. The account creation is similar to Jott’s with a short list of general questions. Then, I received an email less than two minutes later with my SpinVox account activated and ready to use. Their brief email gave me the number to call, a link to my account, and an email address to write to if I ever need assistance.
Score: SpinVox 5, Jott 3
.H2 Round 2: ease of use
Creating a great product that can’t be used makes it not a great product. Sure that knitting machine can make a sweater in 10 minutes, but if it takes 3 hours, $20 in the swear jar, and a manicure to set it up, nobody is going to tout it as the boon to mankind it might have been. So how easy to use are these voice-to-text services?
When you call your SpinVox number a pleasant voice says "Memo through SpinVox now" followed by a little beep. You say your message and end your call. It couldn’t be any simpler.
When you your Jott number a not so pleasant voice says in a mechanic yet hard to understand way "Who do you want to Jott?" Who? I was at a loss. Myself? No. Note? No. I had to hang up and go to their tutorial.
Because you can do so much from their basic account – whether you want to or not – you have to answer the question with "Jott notes". I should have made myself a reminder of that because I forgot what to say the first four times I used the service.
Jott Note to Jott: If I could remember an anti-intuitive command I probably don’t need to leave myself brief notes during the day. If I wasn’t running the test between the two services, I would never have used Jott again.
Score: SpinVox 5, Jott 0
.H2 Round 3: speed
I’m not concerned with speed when it comes to a voice-to-text service. If I needed the note as text immediately, I would probably have typed it myself. However, I’m sure it is important to somebody so I clocked both services.
Both services had one message that took an unusually long amount of time to process. Jott’s average time was 3 minutes, SpinVox averaged at 4 minutes. Both are more than fast enough for me. The shortest time for both services was 2 minutes from dialing the number to receiving an email.
Score: Jott 5, SpinVox 4
.H2 Round 4: accuracy
Accuracy is definitely the make or break point for a voice-to-text service. For the tests, I wrote out the message I would leave and then alternated between which service I would call first, assuming that practice would give the second service a slight advantage. In actuality it didn’t make much of a difference.
I expected my accent to make the biggest difference so I thought SpinVox, an international UK based company, would have an unfair advantage over the Pacific Northwest-based Jott. It’s hard to say if that was true as the inaccuracies in both systems seldom matched.
.H3 Test 1
Jott started off well with 6 out of 8 correct words in the first test. SpinVox had 5 out of 8, but also added a word. I wasn’t terribly pleased with either.
.H3 Test 2
The second test had a very interesting result. Jott scored a perfect 10 out of 10 and included both unnecessary and incorrect punctuation. SpinVox scored 8 out of 10, but the mistake actually made more sense than what I had said.
.H3 Test 3
For the third test I decided to say something that would be fairly similar to something I would really say. Don’t think too hard about what I said.
Note: "After finishing kangaroo motorcycle must work on buffalo umbrella. This is test number 3."
For anybody who follows me on Twitter this makes perfect sense, but would it make sense to a natural language engine?
SpinVox: "After finishing Kangaroo Motorcycle must work on Buffalo Umbrella. This is test no. 3"
Color me impressed! And by adding the capitalization it makes those items sound like code words for top secret projects. Well done! I also liked the "no." abbreviation.
Jott: "After finishing the kangaroo motorcycle, must fix a(?) buffalo umbrellarge(?). This is test number 3."
This is the message that took Jott the longest to deliver. I had actually given up on it and thought I’d get a message saying the message didn’t work. The extra words are wrong, but not too bad. The "fix a(?)" was odd, but maybe I mumbled. "Umbrellarge(?)" is what bothers me. It isn’t a word. It’s just wrong.
.H3 Test 4
I threw this test out as SpinVox sent me an email stating "Sorry, the message you left couldn’t be converted." and Jott sent me absolute gibberish.
.H3 Test 5
Jott: 18/20 with incorrect punctuation. SpinVox: 18/20 with grammar correction. So what if I no speak good?
.H3 Test 6
Totally unfair to both companies I said "I’ve been feeling rather more morose than mordant as of late, but never fear. I’m just as pretentious as ever." SpinVox missed three words, each of which was highlighted with a question mark. Jott replaced a few words with an underlined blank and changed "pretentious" to "the tenacious," which made me chuckle.
.H3 Test 7
"Write article for that brilliant editor David G. at ZATZ by Monday" came back from Jott and SpinVox with the word "ZATZ" being questioned. Well done! [Hmm… sucking up to editors is always a good strategy. 🙂 — DG]
.H2 Accuracy result
As much as I hate to say it, I think they are tied. Hard-data-number-wise, Jott correctly identified individual words 92% of the time while SpinVox was only 89% accurate. Jott’s missed words often resulted in some humorous misunderstanding while SpinVox’s missed words usually turned out to be "correct" if not what I said.
.H1 The champion of voice notes to text
Overall I was please with both services, but I have to give the festive and much sought after championship belt to … SpinVox!
One thing that I didn’t cover in the battle that makes a world of difference between a technology product you will try and one you will keep is the overall customer experience. From the customer service to the emails to the Web portal, SpinVox provides more than just a voice-to-text service. They provide a user experience.
SpinVox, as a company seems, to have a passion for what they are doing. They care. Jott, on the other hand, doesn’t tend to the details. Every email notification I received included a typo in their template. For a company that touts their accuracy, I daresay that missed detail sends the wrong message. That didn’t cost Jott the battle, but that could be indicative of what did.
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
Learn more about [[http://www.jott.com|Jott]].
Learn more about [[http://www.spinvox.com|SpinVox]].
Learn more about [[http://www.iwantsandy.com|I Want Sandy]].
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO
