GoldMail combines voice with visuals to lend messaging a human touch.
GoldMail, based in San Francisco, plans to launch a voiceover messaging application Nov. 12 that combines voice and graphic images in a rich media presentation.
The goal is to make messages more memorable than blasé text-based messaging.
Guy Longworth, CEO of GoldMail, said that text e-mail is limited by an impersonal tone that flatten messages in ways that can lead to misunderstandings.
“Ive often had the experience where Id have to read back the message because Im worried about what someone will take out of it,” Longworth said.
Longworth acknowledged to eWEEK that GoldMail is not a replacement for entrenched e-mail applications such as Outlook, Notes and Web-based e-mail. Rather, the software is intended to appropriately convey the meaning a sender is trying to communicate by adding voice to documents, PowerPoint presentations or other slideware.
After downloading the GoldMail application, users can record a voice message over presentations or other visuals that they have created. Then, they preview the message and send it to GoldMails servers, which sends the customer a URL. The customer can then e-mail that URL to his intended recipients, post it to a Web page, or embed it in a GoldMail player.
To read more about Microsofts messaging strategy, click here.
Longworth said this kind of software has obvious applications in a number of sales contexts, such as real estate, as well as for internal uses, such as for corporate managers creating training messages and tutorials, and otherwise improving internal corporate communications.
If GoldMail is so easy, why havent one of the major providers of unified communications technologies, such as IBM and Microsoft, created something like it already?
Longworth said one of the reasons may be the broadband is just becoming ubiquitous enough to handle GoldMail messages. Beyond that, he wasnt sure why a GoldMail app wasnt fashioned. But hes not complaining.
Downloading GoldMail is free, and customers get five minutes of recording time per message and 1GB of storage. But part of the deal is that GoldMail gets to run ads at the conclusion of each message.
Customers who want more functionality (and no ads) can license GoldMail Pro, which provides 10 minutes of recording time per message, 2GB of storage and unlimited viewing capabilities for $9.95 a month or $99.95 a year.
Click here to experience a Goldmail message from Longworth.
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