One of the best features of Google Voice is the ability of the service to transcribe voicemails and send them to you via email or text message. Sometimes it is easier to read the message rather than calling or using the Google Voice Application on my phone to listen to the message. This is extremely helpful if you are in a place where you can’t answer your phone and want to see what the call is about without having to listen to the message.
After a couple months of using the transcription feature I have seen varying results on the usefulness. It seems to be fairly good at getting the correct information from telemarketers and companies that talk slow and clearly. With calls from my friends and people that talk like you would in a normal conversation, the results need some improvement.
As usual, Google is always working to improve their products and released some information on their approach to improving the transcriptions on the Google Voice Blog. In the past, there was an option to select a checkmark to indicate whether the transcription was helpful or not. Now when you select whether the transcription was helpful, Google asks if you would like to donate the voicemail so they can review it to make the transcriptions more useful.
The post indicates that donated messages will only be used by Google and will not be made public or used for any other purpose than improving the transcription quality. I am glad to see that they are working to improve the transcriptions, and will most likely donate voice mails that do not include personal information. Even though, they indicate that they will never share any of the information I am not comfortable giving them anything with a lot of private information that I would not want to become public.
For an example of how bad the transcriptions can be, check out the transcription below I received from a friend regarding Fantasy Football with the actual message to compare.
G, V H with employees of the week 15 Village or we’ve got a couple left old. I don’t know if you were one few weeks ago. I have a pick up Scott if the we. Why was correct it but if you know if you were lost by 1 or something, but we will got those 20 need point yourself last week with the top operator, for, you know, we should use it turns out to a cacti power and money game, so that’s not. But today morning here so far but I think that’s a month ago we had chatted to single going to try to get some grub reason I was in Moscow must go like you aren’t Shankar, I got caught in Suite 9 o’clock. Shakras questionable and that’s a night game. So blocked. Ralf all that need to decide if you want to make a decision and then loading up on the backs, but I’m out of the day after I know that straightened out today so I pick up Chris Brown and Moats going is Jackson those stuff. I think we should our guide me, but I just don’t know which one you know. Moses I expose him guy brown. I got a got the majority of the carries last game against in the in the game for that, so I’m not real couple of talk calls but I think we’re place we’re position nicely. Dahlia Pittsburgh in Oakland so. I like that. Defensive match up so I think we should leave today, but there’s no guarantees. I believe that you have a plan and pretty. You know just too so let’s try to talk before long. And believe today is the last issue wingman. We were out yet, so it goes. But give me a call.
If you review the message from the Google Voice website or the Android application it helps by using a lighter color for the words that it is not sure of and it also highlights the words as the message is playing along so you can tell how it transcribed each word.
Considering that the Google Voice is free and it offers several other features, I don’t mind dealing with the transcriptions needing improvement. Most of the time, it gives me something to laugh about when I first get the message and for quick simple messages the transcriptions work well enough to be useful. It will be interesting to watch how much the transcriptions improve as Google begins working with donated messages.
Google Voice is still only available by invite (I don’t have any left to give out), for more information on Google voice or to request an invite from Google go to http://www.google.com/googlevoice/about.html
