Slydial, a free phone service I found extremely interesting (I blogged about it when it was released) recently coded a significant upgrade to their product. What I’m impressed about is their ability to get it right based on user feedback. More first-time users will be attracted to utilize the service. When it first launched, it was so close, but still fell short as being a service people would actually use on a continual basis.

I’ve decided to divide this blog post into two parts:

PART #1:
VHS RE-WIND, for those of you who don’t know what Slydial is… it’s a simple phone service that essentially connects you directly to someone’s mobile voicemail (vs. it actually ringing to voicemail). Personally, I’ve tried out the service a handful of times. Here’s what I’ve used it for so far:

• Called my mom while I was at work to tell her my plans for my trip (my mom tends to bring up subjects that usually just plain weird to talk about in front of listening co-workers)

• Called a friend back to tell her my plans for the night (Her name is Lindsay. And she’s notorious for keeping my on the phone AT LEAST 20 minutes or more. I’ve NEVER had a brief conversation with her).

• Phoned a business client during the day (I had a great work flow going that I didn’t want to interrupt and I wanted to ask a complex question that I couldn’t do over email).

That being said — my only “beef” with the service? You have to type in the phone number you wish to Slydial. Everyone knows with the advent of cellphones NO ONE remembers phone numbers anymore. Heck, I can’t even tell you what my own parent’s phone numbers are.

Today, they released an App for BlackBerry and Windows Mobile (iPhone App pending approval) that allows you to use the service using your Contacts list. WA-LA. Simple right? Nice! The ease-of-use has increased 200%. No writing the phone number down then having to call the service.

PART #2:
Even if you don’t ever use Slydial, this product enhancement “case study” brought to mind a larger more in-depth principle regarding the Internet. The web is a “living, breathing entity.” As news happens, it’s updated. As photos are taken, it’s updated. It’s real-time. It’s happening now. This is why it holds such great utilitarian value to all of us.

For a business it should represent who you are RIGHT NOW, not 6 months ago. As things change, as you get feedback, as you conduct mini/complex surveying — your website should be constantly changing to improve based on WHAT WORKS and WHAT DOESN’T. Furthermore, it should also be changing with your business. If information changes or new things are affecting your business, consider making sure it’s up-to-date on your website.

I refer to this concept and way of thinking as “perpetual beta“. It’s the mindset that your website (no matter if it’s business or personal) should be constantly under review to ensure it’s updated and the best it can be. GONE are the days when people had the age old easy excuse, “well it’s printed all over our marketing material — so I can’t change it”(cause likely you had 5,000 prints of it).

In the case of Slydial, they had a great product idea that was good. But it’s execution wasn’t great. So they tweaked it. Fixed it. Extended it’s value by creating an App.

We’re all already familiar with the king of the perpetual beta — Google. All of their products are constantly being updated and perfected. Here’s some quick examples of what I mean in regards to adopting this mindset:

• Change that main navigation button name because no one understands what it means and what information is in that section. Try something else.

• Add that latest Project you’ve worked on to the Portfolio section of your website. Make sure a date is on it to illustrate how frequent you’re updating your website, it’ll boost your credibility.

• Update the words and vernacular, because that’s not what your employees refer to it when working with clients.

There are two easy takeaways from just this one simple product software enhancement:

1.) Slydial improved for the better — and it will possibly exponentially improve their adoption of the product. You should check it out if you think it might be useful to you.

2.) Consider adopt the mindset of the “perpetual beta” when it’s appropriate. What’s out of date for you? What should be changed? Now go update it! Try it out, experiment, see what works and what doesn’t. Carry the mindset that when things changed, take action quick, the touch point people use as the sole mechanism for information/research (the Internet) should be updated right away.
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Have you ever made a phone call praying to someone’s voicemail, and the person picks up? Doh. I can name two scenarios that just happened in the past week. In some situations, you struggle for words because you weren’t expecting the person to pick up

Translated and abstracted; “I want to communicate something to you, but I don’t want to DIRECTLY communicate with you.” Enter Slydial, a phone service that essentially connects you directly to someone’s mobile voicemail.

Whaaaat!?! Ramsey, that’s silly. Why would you ever want to go directly to voicemail?

Well — think about it… it’s a brilliant cheat and an illusion of communication. You can leave late night happy birthday voicemails, avoid talking to your boss to tell him you’re late, dump your girlfriends, avoid a long convos with your parents, and leave client direct voicemails and not interrupt your/their workflow (I do openly acknowledge that if you use this service for these reasons, you can argue it’s a not-so-valiant character trait to possess).

The service is free (you have to listen to an advertisement) so I tried it out for myself. All you do is call 267-759-3425 and then enter the mobile number you want to connect to voicemail. Annnnnnd sure enough it works like it says it does. Pretty slick. So now I’ve added slydial to my contacts list — we’ll see if it comes in handy in the upcoming week.

The idea and concept of this service made me step back and want to catalog technologies/mediums we use for communication. In my opinion, these are in order from highly direct, to least personal:

1.) Face-to-Face
2.) Phone
3.) Instant Messenger
4.) Voicemail
5.) Text Messaging
6.) Email
7.) Letter/Postal Mail

What’s interesting about the introduction of the service Slydial — is the use of technology to deceive. No one can deny we are slaves to our devices that allow us to be reachable and connected (i’m guilty). I think it’s a important skill in life to understand when and what medium to choose from the list above.

Does Slydial cross the line of morality? Is it even ethical to use such a service? You can argue that Slydial is just a compliment to the medium itself. In my opinion, I think it all depends on the situation and the person, but ultimately Slydial can help a person concerned with efficiency and time. In retrospect, it also can greatly benefit cowardly people who like to avoid direct communication.
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