Show me a cheap service that makes anything more convenient and I will give you a raised eyebrow. The reason is simple, if you have something truly good, for a very cheap price, then what you are offering is not really good or worse, there is something greater to be gained by the seller. I am all for the whole ‘cloud’ concept of the internet with recent advancements in VOIP technology and many others. Still, after so many ‘big brother’ problems and an even bigger problem with adware sites phishing for information, you start getting a little paranoid about call-anywhere plans.
The idea of Ribbit Mobile’s incoming call rerouting, on the offset, is pretty straightforward; an internet server will re-route all you incoming calls to a specific device. This saves you a lot with having to pay for collect and it also gives you the freedom to not give away your direct line. You can also have all the incoming calls routed to voicemail at your convenience. Ribbit is offering a transcribing process, and they’re giving users the option of human assisted or automated transcription for more, uh, private messages.
After the whole fiasco with Spinvox and their alleged automated transcription services, I sincerely doubt that anyone will be willing to have their voice message transcribed anytime soon. I for one am still not sold on the idea. There are plenty of other internet based calling methods such as Skype and Yahoo Messenger that makes the whole Ribbit service seem redundant. More so, rerouted calls can still be traced and it does not completely guarantee the privacy of my personal number. If the service expands to deliver something truly new or innovative, I just might give it a second look. For now, I am just keeping tabs on the latest updates for this little cloud based service.
Tags: Ribbit Mobile, VOIP technology