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Ever needed to send a message to someone, a group of people, or even yourself, but were driving and didn’t want to take your eyes off the road? Ever wanted to broadcast a message from your phone to a large group of subscribers in a way that brought them all into one conversation? If you ever thought your cell phone was not a messaging powerhouse–you were wrong. Just wait till you see what these products will let you do.

This review is a comparison, not really a competition, of three products that have some similarities but some big differences, too. I think there’s something here for everybody. I’m not sure my imagination has foreseen all that these products enable one to do. I can’t wait to hear back from readers on the potential they see.

Before I begin, let me say that I am not going to try to compete with the products’ web sites in describing these products, rather I’m just going to hit the highlights of the features that I understand the best or which fascinate me the most.

Jott: Get more done with hands-free mobile email, text/sms, and to-do lists

Let’s start with Jott (beta). Jott is simple and ingenius. You really have to try it to believe it. Jott lets you call one number, speak a voice message, have it converted into a text (SMS) and/or email message, and sent to a recipient defined in a web-based contact list. The accuracy of the speech-to-text translation is astounding. And for uncommon words, such as acronyms or proper names, you simply spell the word right after you say it, and Jott figures it out, and I mean brilliantly.

To get started with Jott, you simply go to Jott.com and create an account. During the beta phase of the product, Jott is free. I’m sure there will be a fee when it goes into full production mode, and I really hope it’s affordable because I love this product. It takes very little time to give the web site your mobile phone number, some minimal personal profile information, and to enter a contact list (limited size during beta). Normal security precautions are used to ensure your phone number and email addresss aren’t being hijacked, etc.

Now, what is really creative about Jott is that it enables you to not only message another person, but yourself (e.g., reminders), a group of people (e.g., workers, family, club/team members), an online to-do list, and even numerous web sites (e.g., online groups, online calendar, blog, and far more in number and variety than you’d ever believe).

This product, or service if you prefer, is as well-conceived, well-designed, and well-implemented as anything I’ve seen on the web. Simple but powerful.

PostScript, March 13, 2008: There will be a new Jott app for BlackBerry soon. It was launched then rescinded because of overwhelming demand and some glitches. Last I checked, there was an announcement on the Jott site.

Note2Self: Hit a button, record a message or train of thoughts, and it instantly sends it to your email box!

Note2Self by Web Information Solutions, Inc. (WebIS.net) is a true BlackBerry application (”app”). It’s purpose is very simple: Using your phone, you run the app, record a voice message to yourself, and it is automatically emailed to the address of your choice (presumably one of yours but it could be any). What is clever is that Note2Self compresses the audio into a very compact file (PCM or AMR) that travels efficiently along with an email message, and is easily played using QuickTime or many other media players. So, it’s like an audio sticky note for your email inbox. Note2Self has a one-time charge of $9.95.

The screenshots above show how simple Note2Self is. That’s all there is to the settings and operation. Entering your email address is the most difficult part.

I should disclose that I have had some technical problems with Note2Self running correctly on my 8130. However, in only hours WebIS customer support provided two fixes that addressed my problems. I know new products that must work on a wide variety of platforms will need to be tweaked. It’s rare to get personal attention and problem resolution within hours, so I have no complaints.

Note2Self is not perfect yet on the 8130. At the the time of this writing, it seems to be limited to about a 20-second message before the audio file gets corrupted. I’m sure WebIS is working on this and will get it ironed out. Again, getting superfast customer service for a $10 product–that’s amazing. That says a lot for the integrity of the company.

So, the days of me scribbling notes to myself while I’m trying to drive (really unsafe, I know!) are over. (Is it just me, or do all of your most brilliant ideas or urgent reminders always seem to come to you at times like when you’re driving and can’t do anything about it?)

SayNow: Broadcast messages to your “fans”

SayNow is mostly used by celebrities (e.g., rock stars, rappers) to communicate with fans. But SayNow will let anyone create a free account and use their service in a similar way. You have to stretch your imagination a bit to understand how you might use it. So, what does SayNow let you do? Well, first you need a number of subscribers–your “fans.” This might be family, friends, co-workers, class mates, or … your blog readers??? Next, you need to have a message to broadcast. The target of your broadcast is your subscribers’ mobile phones, so you can choose it to be a text (SMS) message or a voicemail.

Broadcasting to your subscribers is cool enough, but it doesn’t stop there. They can message back! Don’t panic–they don’t reply to you but to your SayNow web page (see above). The responses–voice or text–are all collected on your SayNow page so that you and your subscribers can access them. In the whole process, nobody’s cell phone number is ever revealed. Yet amazingly everyone can join in an unusual kind of two-way community conversation, using their cell phones, but without compromising their numbers. Again, I’m not sure I’ve totally figured out all the ways this can be used, but here are some possibilities that have come to me:

• Someone running for office can broadcast to his/her campaign workers and followers. They can reply back with pledges of support and encouragement.
• An elected public official could broadcast issues to her/his constituency and get feedback on how they feel about those issues. All done in the “sunshine” where the issue can be openly debated.
• The head of a club or organization could broadcast announcements to members.
• Emergency messages could be broadcast to citizens, students, volunteer firemen, etc.
• A neighborhood watch leader could broadcast alerts to neighbors. Neighbors could report back on suspicious activity they’ve observed.
• A community could be alerted when a child is missing. People could report back if they’ve seen the child, or a certain person or vehicle–anything that might help return the child to safety.
• Orders could be dispatched to remote workers. Workers could report back status or problems.
• Parents could broadcast a message to their kids, “Come home for supper by 6 PM.” Kids could report in where Mom or Dad could check later to see if anyone is going to be late.
• Uses seem to abound in areas like polling, advertising, solicitation, coordination, command and control, public safety, entertainment, gaming.

I must admit I have not yet tested SayNow to a significant degree, largely because I have not put together the necessary “subscribers” to do anything interesting. It’s the concept and possibilities that intrigue me.

I don’t know what the final profit model for SayNow will be. It’s another one of those free web services that you just know sooner or later has to involve either advertising or subscription fees.

Conclusion

You’ll have to spend a lot of time on the web sites of the three products to get a better understanding of them all. But I hope this article has piqued your interest and sparked your imagination. I can’t wait to hear what you readers think.