There aren't exactly all that many details left to announce, but Verizon has just gotten official with its late to the party Visual Voicemail service which, for the time being at least, is only available on the LG Voyager. As we had heard previously, the service will run you an extra $2.99 per month on top of your usual bill, and you'll be able to store up to 40 messages for 40 days, with an option to create up to 10 greetings and 20 distribution lists. Unfortunately, Verizon didn't take the opportunity to announce any firm plans for a roll-out to any of the other phones supposedly in line to get the service, with it only going so far as to say that additional devices will be getting it in the "coming months."

Seems like things are coming along nicely for the launch of Verizon's downloadable visual voicemail service, with some preliminary information briefly hitting VZW's interwebs before seemingly being pulled. As we'd previously heard, a retooled LG Voyager -- creatively named Voyager Refresh -- will be one of the first devices to get access to the service, while current Voyager owners will be able to download the app required to get hooked up. Unlike what we'd previously heard, though, it seems that Verizon has opted to offer the service at no additional monthly service charge (a wise move, may we add). Since the entire lowdown has been taken offline, there's no telling exactly when we're actually supposed to know that VVM exists or when we might be able to sign up for it, but all indications suggest it'll be sooner rather than later.

[Via phoneArena]

Update: We're hearing that the $2.99 / month fee is still in effect. For shame, Verizon!

Really now, who hasn't had a moment where they celebrated mightily after no one picked up on the fourth / fifth ring? Rather that trusting Lady Luck to lead your phone calls to voicemail, Slydial's giving you a main line in. Said company enables any US post-paid wireless customer on any major carrier to dial someone in a similar situation and drop a message in their voicemail box without having to actually speak to them. Folks interested in taking advantage simply dial (267)-SLY-DIAL from either a landline or mobile telephone, enter in another mobile number and either listen to a short advertisement or pay up in the form of a subscription fee or $0.15 per call. Give it a go and see how it turns out.

[Via DownloadSquad]

Details are still trickling in on this whole visual voicemail sitch on Big Red, but we're starting to wrap our noodle around it. In addition to the four devices we've already mentioned -- the Voyager refresh, Chocolate 3, Blaze, and Utopia -- it turns out that none other than the mighty BlackBerry Thunder will be among the first devices to benefit from sooper dooper 22nd century high-tech voicemail management.

We've also learned that it's actually the Vu30 (little close to the LG Vu, eh, guys?) that's being called the Motorola Utopia, while the Blaze will be some heretofore unknown touchscreen device -- pretty uncommon by Moto standards, particularly in the States where we don't get to benefit from the MING series' awesomeness. As always, we'll roll out more info as we get it.

Jump on the bandwagon much, Verizon? We're just bustin' your chops, guys -- we know it's hard to avoid jumping on the bandwagon when Sprint and AT&T (by way of Apple, of course) are starting to hustle hard with the visual voicemail trend. We've caught wind that VVM is actually shockingly close to launching on a handful of Verizon devices; the current target is late July to early August. That's the good news. The bad news, though, is that it'll run $1.99 on top of your regular plan pricing, which feels like a bit of a rip when the crosstown competitors are doing it at no additional charge. The feature will take the form of a BREW download that can be snagged and provisioned by the customer in the field without any customer service intervention, and will launch on specific devices.

The first four to get hooked up will be the LG Chocolate 3, the "Voyager Refresh" (it's unclear whether this is a hardware or firmware update to the present-day Voyager), and from Motorola, the "Blaze" and "Utopia." We're not sure what those two are, either, but the rugged V750 may be the Utopia, and deductive reasoning suggests that the VU30 could be the Blaze.

[Thanks, HTCKid]

SpinVox has made quite a stink over the past few months with its voicemail-to-text tech, launching on several carriers globally in addition to offering service direct to end users. Okay, so now that that trick's played out, what's next? The British firm's new BlackBerry plug-in takes the concept to the next level by automatically linking incoming translated voicemails to contacts in the phone's address book, making it a snap to reply to the message via text or email. Admittedly, it'd freak us out if we left someone a message and got a reply via email within a few minutes with a transcription of our own voicemail attached at the bottom, but hey, that's the brave new world we live in. The plug-in will run users £5 (about $10) per year on top of their normal SpinVox fees.

[Via MobileBurn]

Powered by SpinVox, Alltel has become the first national US carrier to offer a service capable of transcribing voicemails and sending them to subscribers as text messages. Dubbed Voice2TXT, the feature is offered in plans starting at $4.99 a month for 20 conversions all the way up to $19.99 for 100 conversions (what, no unlimited plan?) with texts sent by the system not counting against users' text messaging allowances. Signing up for the service apparently requires that folks reset their voicemail systems and re-record their greeting, and after that, you theoretically never need to listen to a recorded message again. Alltel's targeting the feature at people that frequently find themselves in meetings and can't take a call, but we have to ask: since you don't need to speak when you're listening to your voicemail, isn't staring at your phone and pressing keys every bit as annoying to those around you as holding the phone to your face?

SpinVox has announced BlackBerry support for its interesting take on visual voicemail, but their version drops the voicemail in your inbox as an email or SMS to read instead of having to dial and listen (or click and listen in the iPhone's case). Unique to the BlackBerry version, the software syncs the callers name with your contacts to let that one click reply thing happen, via email or a call -- cool, right? Apparently RIM execs had a chance to trial the software and were so impressed with what they saw, the trial then became a product. SpinVox is offering a demo version, so if you are inspired to check it out hit the read link.

[Via Tech Digest]

We're guessing not, but El Reg has a piece up squarely accusing Apple of another swipe, this time of the term "Visual Voicemail" to describe the iPhone's voicemail UI. Visual Voicemail, which is owned by Citrix and originally developed by Net6, has been around for years and may (or may not) be what's powering Apple and Cingular's solution for the common problem of having to wait through all the voicemail you don't want just to hear the voicemail you do. And "Visual Voicemail" is, in fact, capitalized on Apple's site, meaning if legit usage of the term or licensed software isn't in the cards, Apple could soon find itself in two simultaneous pots of hot water.

Reaching out to all those who maintain both a land line telephone and a mobile number, EMBARQ has launched the EMBARQ Together Phone PaQ which introduces at least one rather handy feature:  "One Voicemail" allows users to have just a single voicemail inbox for both their home and mobile phones. If only having to check one mailbox doesn't sway you, voicemail alerts are sent to both phones where you can retrieve them at home or on the go. The biggest "feature" here, however, is the usual double-play integration between home and mobile phones; billing for both are handily included on one bill, calls to and from the two phones are always free, and there's only one customer service number to remember for both services -- a dream come true for many who can't seem to completely reside at home or in the office, or who just want less maintenance from their voice providers.