BY KATHERINE BOEHRET
> Despite spam and other problems, email is highly useful and
> effective. You can quickly send and receive messages, delete or
> forward them, and save them for reading at a later time. A glance at
> your inbox can tell you a lot about each message, including its
> subject, sender and the time it was received.
> But voice mail lags behind in key ways. A voice mail still doesn't
> tell you the caller's name or reason for calling unless you listen to
> at least part of it. You usually can't reply to a voice mail with a
> message of your own, as with email; instead, you must call the person
> back. And you can't easily jump from the most recent voice mail to the
> 10th without listening to every message in between.
I get "voice mail" from ATT CallVantage and it ID's the person and the phone number by sending the WAV file as an email attachment.
Still, voice mail has its place. A phone call is much more personal
> than an email, and lets you use vocal inflection to express your
That's just tautological!