ME exec editor Tim Green was disappointed to hear of Picsel's demise, and shocked that SpinVox uses humans...
In the four and a half years since launching ME, I must have met hundreds of companies – the vast majority of them being ‘leading providers of end-to-end solutions’. (If I ever form a rock band, it will be called ‘The Leading Providers’).
Some of them are even carrier-grade. Mmmm. Despite the temptation to be cynical, it is still possible to be genuinely blown away by a technology or business idea. Imagine my surprise and disillusionment, then, at the demise of Picsel, and the mud being thrown at Spinvox.
First Picsel. I met these Scottish guys first in 2005 and couldn’t quite believe what I was seeing. While Europe was trying to adjust to menu-based WAP decks, Picsel was showing me touschcreens that let you move around video clips with your finger. WTF, as the kids say.
It was breathtaking. No wonder that Picsel was winning huge contracts in advanced Japan to embed its file viewers and browsers with handset companies and operators.
The trouble was that Picsel was clearly a technology-led company that had ambitions beyond technology. It believed – understandably – that its platforms could help brands make rich media mobile services.
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But selling to Nike is different from selling to Samsung, and Picsel never really cracked it. And when the handset biz slipped, it suffered. Last week it went into administration. I’m sure the tech will be snapped up. It should be.
This week, Spinvox has been the centre of a media scrum, fighting back against accusations of mismanagement and financial trouble. To remind you, Spinvox turns your voicemails into text and sends the message minutes after it’s been left.
I’ve been using it for a couple of years, and wouldn’t be without it. The service works, and so apparently does the business model, wherein Spinvox sells to operators who offer this churn-reducing extra to subscribers for a few quid a month.
I always thought Spinvox was outstanding. But this week, I’ve had to revise my view. Now, it appears that the firm is struggling even though it’s received over £100m in funding. Far more shocking to me is the revelation that Spinvox uses human operators, not automation, to convert messages.
I genuinely thought this was a hoax when I heard it first. Now, Spinvox claims humans are only used to ‘train’ the AI, but all those now-surfacing blogs by operators in Morocco and the Philippines suggest otherwise. The feeling of wonderment I used to get when a robot-transcribed message chirruped onto my phone has been replaced with slight queasiness.
There’s a lesson to be learnt from all this: I might think I know a bit about mobile, but you must never ever ask me for investment advice.
