Voicemail on its last legs

Is it time for voicemail to be labelled the most hated messenger service in the world Over the decades, voicemail has been losing its old glory and becoming less competitive among its postmillennial counterparts in an ever evolving, innovative field of communication technology. In fact, there were reports even in 2012 suggesting the impending death of voicemail after a dip in the number of messages sent.

Arrival of ‘No More Voicemail’, an app, as indicated by its name, is another indication of the doomsday of this 1980s medium that holds the rare record of supporting the telecommunication system from the land line era to its wireless and hands free successors.

Time magazine predicts in a headline that ‘This (App) Could Kill Voicemail Once and for All’ calling voicemail “archaic” and “unnecessary” “in a world where we can easily reach one another through texts, emails and social media messages”. Techcrunch puts it in other words: ‘No More Voicemail is an App That Kills Voicemail’, beginning its article with ‘Voicemail is so last century’. Why so much fuzz over an app Take a closer look.

Instead of uprooting voicemail, the app creates a feel as if it does not exist. In the place of voice message, the call forwarding mechanism gains prominence. When a receiver finds it inconvenient to answer, by cancelling the call or refusing to attend, the call gets forwarded to a virtual number. Testing the patience of the caller comes next. The call would begin to ring endlessly in the virtual number, unless and until the caller decides to give up. Depending on the matter to be conveyed, the caller can text the other person or simply leave.

The operational methodology is same as that of the services like Google Voice. The ‘killer’ role attributed to the app becomes an exaggeration here. It is not really wiping out voicemail and instead, the app just performs a ‘conditional disabling’ functionality. At any moment, the user can return to voicemail by deactivating the app account. Otherwise, to opt for the app, the user need not wait for the telecom operator’s permission to end the voicemail service.

‘No More Voicemail’ takes some simple procedures for installing. The user gets an activation code on phone to copy-paste it on the dialler for the set up instructions to appear. TelTech systems, the developer, is offering the app for free on Android and iOS platforms. The voicemail lovers can hope the system would continue to stay as long as the internet telephone services have takers.