Greetings. Just a late night quickie. The New York Times has a story up about a service called "Slydial" -- which is making a big deal out of letting people send outgoing calls directly to cell phone voicemail rather than ringing the destination phones.

The story states that Slydial wouldn't reveal their technology since it was apparently patent pending.

Well, I'll reveal it with a high level of probability, without even having to see their application -- which one would hope would be rejected by the USPTO (but of course, these days you can get a patent on just about any ridiculous concept, so ...)

Anyhow, the obvious way to accomplish Slydial's purpose is simply to link callers to the direct voicemail entry interfaces that are available to cellular subscribers (and in many cases, open to anyone who makes the simple effort to note the centralized voicemail access number used by various carriers in regional areas).

Once you've used one of several techniques to access the voicemail system at that level, a typical option is "send a message to another number." You enter the destination number (on that cellular system) and you go straight to their voicemail prompt.

No magic at all -- lots of people use this feature to send each other voicemail messages all the time. The only "value-added" that Slydial seems to be providing is (surreptitiously?) permitting non-subscribers to access the systems.

Of course, I have no proof at this point that Slydial works in this manner. But it's a good bet that they're doing something along these lines -- and also that their patent application belongs in the round file at the patent office.

Say goodnight Gracie.

--Lauren--

Blog Update (August 3, 2008): Do It Yourself Slydial -- Even Dumber Than I Thought!