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Here’s something that showed up in my inbox a month or so ago, but which I hadn’t noticed until yesterday: Slydial. It’s mobile application which allows you to send a message straight to a recipient’s voicemail. I vaguely recall this feature being available through carrier voicemail at some point or another, but since I don’t deal with carrier voicemail anymore I’m not sure if it still exists. Even if it does, you need to know the person’s number in order to execute it, and I don’t know about any of you out there by my recall for phone numbers is limited to my parents and childhood friends. Anyway, onto the application features:

How does Slydial work? Well, you’ll be happy to know that they have a BlackBerry application. All you have to do is sign up, which is free. You can then download the application right to your phone. From there the process is beyond simple. Go to your address book and click on a contact. In the full menu there will be a new option called, duh, Slydial. You can then record a message and have it sent to that user’s voicemail.

The application and service is free, as in you don’t have to pay for it with money. As with many free services nowadays, Slydial implements voice advertising. If this is too annoying for you, you can eliminate it by paying for their Premium Plan. They’re even offering free trials of the Premium Plan, which is to say they’re going to show you the service without advertising so that, as they hope, you just can’t stomach it with the ads.

I’m sure you can conjure plenty of ways to use this service. Slydial provides a few examples on their website. My personal favorite:

Play the field more effectively.

You are dating quite a few people at the same time. You don’t want to leave them all text messages because there is nothing romantic about that. But a nice voicemail to each would score you points.

Slydial: the service for pimps and playas. It has plenty of other uses, of course, including times you want to avoid an awkward conversation. I wouldn’t recommend breaking up with your girlfriend using it, though.

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