What makes this the best little web app ever ever ever?

First of all it’s simple and effective, which is always a good thing.

Second, it transcribes your voice note and emails it to you. “Are you kidding me?” No, I’m serial [sic]. In fact, I am blown away at the accuracy of the transcription. You can even spell out a word and it knows not to transcribe “…that’s spelled S-H-I-H space T-Z-U”, but instead it appears properly in the transcribed sentence, “the quick brown shih tzu jumped over the fence.” Foxy.

No longer do I need to tell someone, “send me an email and remind me” when I am not in a position to make a note. I can just Jott it in about twenty seconds. Heck, if you want, you can even use Jott to send a message directly to your Twitter blog. If you haven’t already, you owe it to yourself to start using this wonderful new tool.

I found another good article today about the impact that the Apple iPhone on the entire consumer device market, which is remarkable considering that it will not even be in the hands of the public until June 1st, 2007. This is the true spirit of capitalism, and I am excited to see it. It will also be interesting to see what happens with the lawsuit over the name iPhone, that evidently Cisco has owned the rights to since 2000. This could end up being a marketing headache for Apple. If they do end up renaming the device, I will venture to guess it will be “iFone” or something akin. “iPod” is a rather meaningless name, yet oddly descriptive, so I was surprised when Apple chose to use such an uninspired descriptor as “phone” in the name.

It is also a funny irony that Apple is so cutting edge with their products, and yet they are using branding whose lowercase “i” is now passé, such as the whole “My” this and “My” that, popularized by Microsoft circa mid-nineties. It brings up an interesting conundrum between traditional branding and the incredible speed at which the technology world and its culture now progress. If a business brands its products technology-culture neutral, then it has less risk of being outdated in a few years but is less hip and thus may not do a good job of grabbing the attention of its target market. On the other hand, if a company takes advantage of the cultural branding trends, it may have to change often to keep up with the curve, and thus risk losing its branding mind share.