Re: [asterisk-biz] Asterisk and Yext.com's (on the fly) call transcription..

On Wed, 30 Sep 2009, Ritesh A wrote:

> Thanks for the insights. I just tried out Twilio's Speech to Text API and
> played the same message as Yext Demo. It worked out pretty well so I am very
> impressed. It's likely that Twilio uses SpinVox in the back-end anyway.. By
> the way, I think Yext records the call and sends the recorded file for
> transcription. This saves the hassle of mixing and transcribing two
> different audio files.
>
> Yes, Yext has a fairly impressive solution indeed and I could think of so
> many applications that are vertical specific (e.g. Automotive). I could
> imagine Yext building a lot of library relevant to each category (e.g.
> Doctor, Mechanic, Finance etc) and then doing a close/guess association of
> the returned text to white/blacklist certain terms and then splitting them
> into different sub-categories (e.g. Year built, Make/Model etc). This is
> hard work (hence barrier to entry) and they seem to have raised $17M in
> recent round in addition to running a (self asserted) $20M and growing
> business. Hard to play the catch up game...

It's clear that they are doing a good job of focusing their efforts on 12
of the 2300 Yellow Pages categories, making sure they are very good with
the first 12 or so before expanding. I'm sure a lot of work went into the
lead generation logic.

Don't try to catch up. Figure out how to offer something that offers a
slightly different model than Yext. Find customers that like the idea of
Yext, but don't like something about it, then build it for them. Search
the forums/web for weaknesses in Yext's offerings, then fill in that gap.

> Another interesting fact is that Yext solution would improve with time much
> like wine. Given the call/customer flow and lack of competition, Yext could
> continue to improve the keyword filtering and categorizing over time
> creating a fairly accurate solution.

Evolution can be good for business. They are providing a valuable
service to small local businesses. I'm personally interested in using
their service as a way to track calls to the office more than lead
generation, which it sounds like they realize and are planning.

Beckman
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Peter Beckman Internet Guy
beckman@angryox.com http://www.angryox.com/
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