I’ve never used any type of voice input on any phone. My native tongue is not English, it’s Croatian; phones don’t cope with it so well. But even in English, saying “call Julia” or something to that effect is a) not as reliable as typing a number or selecting it from the phone book and b) you look silly talking to your phone.

Hence, I’m skeptical about Google’s latest iPhone application: voice search. Instead of typing in a search phrase, you simply say it to the iPhone; “Where’s the nearest Starbucks?” is the example used by the New York Times, and it should return the results within seconds. The application is free, and should show up in Apple’s App Store sometime today.

First, let me be clear about one thing: this is a great idea, and one day, far in the future, voice input to various pieces of hardware around us might become a part of our everyday life. But right now, I’ll eat my hat if this thing is reliable enough - and we’re talking street conditions, crowded coffee house conditions; in short, normal situations - to use on an everyday basis. I bet that two times out of three Google’s software will misunderstand you and give you the wrong results. And I bet that in the end, the majority of users who try the feature out will go back to standard (virtual) keyboard input.

True, the fact that typing on the iPhone’s keyboard is nowhere near as fast as typing on a regular sized keyboard gives some credit to this idea. However, again, if you’re in Internet search/web browsing mode - meaning you’re not holding the phone next to your ear, you’re holding it in your hands - it’ll probably be easier to simply type in whatever search phrase you need.

In any case, we’ll all be able to try it out very soon, and I hope that Google will prove me wrong on this one. But somehow, at least for now, I doubt it.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Yahoo Brings Search to the iPhoneWeekend Open ThreadInteractive Voices - Voice Over MarketplaceSay Where Offers iPhone 3G Users Pre-Programmed Location Based DestinationsSecond Life Adds Voice to Live Grid for All UsersiPhone Now Wears a Suit: AT&T Unveils Business PlanTeleMoose Optimizes Amazon Shopping on Your iPhone

Tatango, a website that allows users to send text messages to groups, is adding a new feature today for making phone calls. Using the same interface, users can now opt to record a voice message and then send it to one of their groups. Recipients then receive a text alerting them to the new message, and can reply with “CALL,” which will in turn dial the user and relay the voice recording.

Similar to its group texting product we profiled earlier this year, Tatango Voice offers a freemium business model. In other words, if you want free service, all of your calls will include advertisements before the voice message is heard by recipients, but for a monthly fee, you can have the advertising removed. Free group texts include a 30 character advertisement at the end.

While to some extent, Tatango’s group text messaging service could be replaced by one of the many emerging “enterprise Twitter” startups, the voice offering is something that could be really useful for group organizers, especially considering there is only so much you can say in 140 characters. Meanwhile, since Tatango is a “one-to-many” platform, you don’t get the noise that accompanies a group microblogging service.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Tatango Makes Group SMS Speedy and Cheap (The Startup Review)Second Life Adds Voice to Live Grid for All UsersWeekend Open ThreadInteractive Voices - Voice Over MarketplaceGETaBUZ Launches Voice Messaging for MySpacePingercasts Bring Spam to your VoicemailEvoca Launches API to Enable Customized Voice Recordings

People often speak of old and new media as a dichotomy, with stodgy network television channels and traditional newspapers on the one hand, and hip, technologically sophisticated youth on the other. But recently, old media –- in particular, large television outlets -– have been catching on. A recent post on Mashable noted that CNN is using Twitter to interact with viewers. I commented that Fox News Channel is also using Twitter and Facebook. Many traditional newspapers, national and local, are also using Twitter and other social software to various degrees.

Because I use my Comcast Cable DVR to watch shows on delay about 75% of the time, I found myself this morning viewing a national news show and realizing that I couldn’t interact with the hosts via Twitter, because I was an hour too late. Show hosts asking viewers to “Twitter your comments” is clearly the modern version of “calling in with your questions for our guest.” The key question I asked myself was, as more television media master their new media brands, will we find ourselves more likely to tune into their shows in real time?

The financial consequence of not using DVRs, or downloading the shows from a third-party website, or other new options, is that more people watching the real-time version means more viewer share, which in turn means more advertising revenue. People are more likely to engage the show in real time and therefore more likely to see traditional commercials. I don’t know if the gurus at television networks or advertising firms they work with are thinking about it this way yet, but it seems like a truism to me.

So what might be a strategy going forward? As an avid watcher of television, particularly political news, complex dramas, and reality shows, I could imagine many scenarios in which incentives are created to watch shows in real time – viewers pose questions for the guest, guide alternative dramatic scenes, or decide what challenge the players have to perform. How cool would it be to watch Donald Trump, Sr. using Twitter on a BlackBerry in the middle of the live Apprentice finale? And the advertising underbelly is that you are statistically more likely to purchase paper towels, basketball sneakers, or a dream vacation cruise.

With the increasingly “long tail” of niche television channels, magazines, and similar outlets only becoming more prevalent, it might behoove the “blockbuster” organizations like NBC to become the leaders in “old new media” to win some of that viewer share back. This summer, the startup social network and search site Searchles inked a deal with the venerable Washington Post to create social networks among people with common reading interests. Why not similarly network all the people who voted for Clay Aiken, are fans of Gossip Girl, or hate The View?

Mark Drapeau is an Associate Research Fellow at the Center for Technology and National Security Policy in Washington, DC. These views are his own and not the official policy or position of any part of the U.S. Federal Government.

(Image via Flickr/ dailyinvention)

—Related Articles at Mashable - All That’s New on the Web:Pudding Media Raises $8 Million to Place Ads in Phone Calls. Yuck.TVTonic Launches Auto-Sync Videos On DemandGoogle TV Screws the Middleman (i.e. Apple)Save the Date for the New Communications Forum 2008Mashable Readers: Save 20% for O’Reilly Money:Tech Conference in NYCBrightcove Launches in UK with London OfficeSpactor Speech Technology Searches Radio & TV

Source:Mashable!

One of many companies launching at DEMO this week is Say Where from DialDirections. Say Where hopes to make its mark by offering voice input locations and directions generated by speaking an address or city into an iPhone 3G. By doing this Say Where brings basic pre-programmed GPS destination functionality to the iPhone 3G.

If you have used any basic GPS system, you know that pre-programmed destinations are par for the course. There is a selection included in any GPS worth its salt of nearby gas stations, movie theaters, restaurants and other points of interest. The drawback to these is that they don’t change dynamically as businesses succeed or fail. They could be outdated at any moment without real time data feedback.

If you have an iPhone, you already have all of the real time Web-based destination information you could want. Coupled with the ability to get directions and mark your place with drop pin and bookmark, iPhone users already have more flexibility than this program appears to offer at first blush. If I had to choose between getting more reliable and up to date information from the iPhone Web interface, or possibly outdated pre-programmed information from Say Where, I’m going to have to choose the Internet until Say Where includes real data.

One of Say Where’s pitch points is voice capability. It’s nice to speak into the iPhone and get results, especially if you have trouble with the touch screen keyboarding. in the end, what good is convenience or cool software if it gives you potentially useless data? This is a good idea, but it needs more.

Perhaps I am judging this application too quickly and should be more excited about having access to data like nearby destinations, points of interest, recommendations and reviews with simple voice commands. Unfortunately, I just can’t seem to get excited about it. If it offered a way to get real time data and merge it with true GPS functionality, I’d be more excited. however, with the availability of the DASH GPS, I’m not seeing a need for Say Where right now, since DASH already does pretty much everything that I want in a real time, Internet connected GPS interface.

However, if the most you can say about your new iPhone App is that it uses voice commands and won’t cost users a phone call when retrieving the data they request, I’d recommend adding more features to really make it noteworthy. As it stands, when I want unbiased data on the iPhone 3G from voice commands I’ll just dial 1-800-GOOG-411 and either get the answer on the phone or have them SMS me. If I want similar functionality I can use programs like Nearby or Infospace. Meanwhile, if Say Where were to introduce real data instead of canned data, it would become ten times more useful.

earfl is like Twitter for phone calls. Instead of sending in an SMS update, you can just dial a number and say a little something. The recording will be linked to your account on the Web, and can then be shared with family and friends. Attach an image if you’d like–this makes audio recordings (especially those from the phone) more interesting.

Stories can be rated, commented upon, emailed out to friends, or embedded into other social networking profiles or websites. earfl also features groups, so you can connect with others regarding a particular topic of interest. Another useful feature is the ability to send a recording to another user and invite them to participate. For this option, earfl will actually grant them a redemption code that allows them to submit a recording without having to set up an account.

Each public story has a ShareThis button, so items can easily be spread to most major social media networks and bookmarking sites. And while ShareThis allows these stories to be sent to other microblogging tools like Twitter, an automated option for users would be helpful as well, especially if they’re looking to diversify their content for redistribution purposes.

Even though we’re seeing a lot of development in this industry, with BT acquiring Ribbit and a number of other applications finding ways to leverage vocal commands and conversions for multimedia purposes, earfl still fights an uphill battle, as there are a number of other services (besides Twitter) like Pownce and Utterz that are present in the microblogging domain and support multiple file types. To that end, having additional options like speech-to-text conversion and SMS and email distribution options could help earfl straddle more aspects of the microblogging market.

Another web-based conferencing service, Foonz might be going down that route. Randy Corke, President & […]

Another web-based conferencing service, Foonz might be going down that route. Randy Corke, CEO of […]

But where is the money?

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