How to Use Jott

Jott is a beta (test version) voice transcription service available to anyone with a cell phone in the United States and Canada. Jott’s functions are useful for many different applications—making lists, reminders to yourself and text messages to friends and family. Jott is perfect for those times when you don’t have a paper and pen handy or text messaging is inconvenient. The best feature of all is that Jott is totally free.

Difficulty:

Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Go to the Jott website and sign up for a free account. After you enter your registration information—name, phone number and email address—you will be asked to verify your email address, and a confirmation text will be sent to your cell phone.

2. Enter your friends and family in your contact list on the Jott website. Log onto your Jott account, click on "My Contacts" and enter the names, phone numbers and email addresses of those you wish to add to your contact list.

3. Create and send a text message. Dial the Jott phone number. At the prompt, say the name of the contact you wish to text message (to Jott yourself, say “Myself”). Say your message clearly, wait for the system to say "Got it," and then hang up. Your contact will receive a text message and an email that includes a link to hear the audio of your message.

4. Set a reminder for yourself. Dial the Jott phone number and at the prompt, say “Reminder.” The Jott system will ask you for the day, time and event for the reminder. You will receive a text message and email 15 minutes prior to your event.

5. Make a list using Jott. Log onto your account on the Jott website and create a list. Dial the Jott phone number; at the prompt, say the name of the list to which you want to add an item (i.e. To Do, Grocery, Work, etc.). You will receive an email of your Jott, and it will be added to your list on the Jott website.

6. Send a text message to a group of people at one time. Log onto your Jott account and create a group by naming the group and adding the desired contacts to it. Dial the Jott phone number and say the name of the group when prompted. Your message will be emailed and text messaged to everyone in your group.

7. Post a message to a web link using Jott. Dial the Jott phone number and say the name of one of the web services with which Jott is affiliated (these include sites such as Twitter, LiveJournal and Blogger). Follow the prompts to post your message, which will then be added to your website.

Tips & Warnings

• Spell out the name of complicated words and proper nouns to help the Jott system learn how to pronounce them.

• Add a contact to your Jott account by text messaging “Add Contact,” followed by the person’s name, phone number and email address to 40101.

• When Jotting to yourself, skip the prompts by pressing 1 on your cell phone.

• Make sure your Jott account is set to the right time zone so that your reminders arrive at the correct time.

Resources

• Jott Website