I don’t have a fancy phone. I mean, it can take pictures and video, which I consider very fancy, but it’s really not. I don’t have a data plan. I can’t check my email on it. I can’t browse the web, zoom in and out, or control it by touching the screen. But I can, however, make phone calls (wonder of all wonders) and send text messages. In the past, if I’ve wanted to take a note of something to remember later, I text message it to myself, then forget to check my inbox later and end up forgetting it anyway. But it seems I have found a way to take notes and remind myself of things while I’m out and about, and I don’t even have to have a fancy phone!
Enter Jott. They are a Seattle-based company that has won my heart in one day. The service they offer is simple (on the surface) but amazing. Here’s how it works: If you want to send an email to yourself or anyone else, you call a toll-free number, speak your message, and it is almost instantly converted into text and delivered to the inbox of the person you wanted to reach. They even have a service called Jott Links that allows you to do the same thing for your blog, twitter account, google calendar, etc…
I’ve just started using the service today, but I’m already very impressed. The signup process was about as frictionless as I could possibly imagine for a service like this (where you do actually have to be a real person and not a dog). Here’s how to do it:
- Fill out the form you see here
- Check your email for a confirmation link
- Enter your phone number (forgot to get a screenshot, but it’s literally 3 text boxes and some text that says “Enter your phone number:”)
- Call the toll-free number and begin jotting.
That’s really, truly all there is to it.
The service is really pretty incredible. When you call the number, you are asked to whom you would like to jot. Say “myself” or “me” to leave yourself a note, or say the name of anyone in your contact list to send them an email (or the name of a service for Jott Links to post to that service). The voice-to-text works very well (thanks to India, from what I read). If you mumble, it may not be perfect, but it will be close. If it’s not right, simply click on the message, and you can correct it yourself.
Once you have sent yourself a note, there are a few things you can do with it. The most important things are setting a reminder on it and adding it to a list (such as a to-do list). If you set a reminder, Jott will email you and/or text message you before the event to (get this) remind you. Once on a list, you can check it done or throw it away.
One of the greatest things I see about it, though, is group emailing. Let’s say you’re in the car on the way to the airport, drinking an obligatory Starbucks (We’re world travelers here. We have mergers and acquisitions to take care of), and you realize you’re not going to make the marketing subgroup meeting you had planned. Like I said, we’re world travelers here, and much too busy to call each of the seven people in the subgroup and let them know individually, so we call up Jott, tell it to send an email to the group “Marketing Subgroup”, speak the message, and now everyone has a nice email in their inbox letting them know they have no reason to stay at work.
In addition, a link to the actual audio is sent along with every message in case you or anyone else wants to hear your beautiful voice instead of reading your message (or in case it’s not transcribed perfectly).
Oh, and did I mention you can text message the service if you don’t want to call? In fact, you can perform just about any action through texting that you can on the site, including adding contacts, moving Jotts around, etc… It’s very slick and adds even more convenience.
All I’m really trying to say here is: Jott. Is. Awesome. That’s really it. And it’s 100% free, too. Imagine that. I’m going to be using it quite a bit in the future.
If you care, CrunchBase and KillerStartups have profiled the company.