Jott

For those of us who don’t have a BlackBerry and who don’t like to fuss with itsy-bitsy keyboards on regular cell phones, Jott.com is interesting. The idea is simple: you phone in to Jott (on a “1-800” number), tell the voice to whom you want to send a message; speak the message and have it sent to the recipient’s email, fully transcribed and available as a sound recording as well. You can opt to have it sent to the recipient’s phone as a text message instead; and, because transcribing, which is done by a combination of machine and human effort, can take up to 15 minutes, you can choose to have the voice recording sent immediately without a transcription.

For me it will be most useful in sending myself a note or a reminder when I’m away from a computer — driving, perhaps, or anywhere inspiration strikes. The beauty is not simply that you get a record of your apperçu, but that, because it’s in text format, you can file it along with others of your nifty notions that will be worked on one of these days. And lest you forget to return to the Jotted idea, you can arrange for Jott to send you a reminder, which can arrive either in your email inbox or via your phone.