We Get The Beep

I had another conversation with NY Times personal tech columnist David Pogue yesterday on KIRO/Seattle. We began talking about Twitter, which had suffered a denial-of-service attack that took the site down earlier in the day -- and because he was sitting in his office autographing 1,500 copies of his new book, "The World According To Twitter," which has just been published.

Then we reprised our discussion about Pogue's "Take Back The Beep" campaign against the cell phone companies, whose recorded instructions on how to leave voice mail are a waste of your time, but a big moneymaker for them because they use up your minutes faster.

You may be part of the problem, if your outgoing message includes detailed instructions on what to do when I hear the beep. Voice mail technology has been part of our lives long enough that you no longer need to tell me, "Please leave your name, number, the day and time you called, a brief message, a good time for me to call you back, your preferred brand of energy drink, a line from your favorite Springsteen song, and the last four digits of your social security number."

Shorten it up and save us some time and money.

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