IMBOT

May 7, 2000 7:52 AM

IMBOT is a nifty web app which lets you send a typed message to someone someone's phone. Basically a text-to-speech phone gateway.
posted by triptych (6 comments total)

Yeah, I saw this in peterme's blog. I tried it out. The only problem is the computer-synthesized voice swallows some important consonants: packing became 'acking', stuff became 'tuff', etc etc. Coolness aside, I just don't see this being a widely used thing. Where in the world am I if I have access to the internet but not to the phone??

The other way around, though, makes a lot of sense. If I'm on the way to an appointment or whatever, and I don't know someone's phone number but I do know their email, I want to be able to call a number which does voice-recognition and sends an email on my behalf to that person. It's the email alternative to the answering service/text pager.

Or just give me ESP, dammit.
posted by fooljay at 8:13 AM on May 7, 2000

Well...

my Skytel 2-way pager (you know; the Barbie laptop?) has this feature, too; and given the keyboard and the antenna (or for that matter, my pilot and a Minstrel) it could be pretty useful...
posted by baylink at 8:28 AM on May 7, 2000

I miss everything about my old SkyTel except for it's size. It was like wearing a fully-loaded lunchbox on your hip.
posted by fooljay at 10:04 AM on May 7, 2000

I think all of you are missing the point. This is the best toy ever. I've already scared six of my friends half to death with the help of imbot's comical computer-generated voice.
The most useful feature I can see is as a personal reminder agent. It allows you to enter a call to be delievered at a later time, which means you could arrange for it to call your cell phone and remind you fifteen minutes before (this space intentionally left blank).
And if they don't check the referring page, you could hit it programmatically. That would enable some cool shit.
posted by lbergstr at 11:56 AM on May 7, 2000

Yeah, Fooljay, but c'mon; Advisor's aren't geek chic, anymore: everyone's got one...
posted by baylink at 12:17 PM on May 7, 2000

lbergstr, good points all around. Nice post... I will look into said "functionality".

Baylink, same to you :-)
posted by fooljay at 7:50 PM on May 7, 2000