Spreading of VoiceXML with web applications today
Something that you may notice about VoiceXML, is that some industrial still consider it not yet mature. I remember I have talked last year about the choice of VoiceXML in the IVR side with some professionnals and they told me that they didn't choose it because it is not a standard. Of course their decision is relative to their knowledge and business strategy, but it makes me think about spreading VoiceXML to the public.
Even if the VoiceXML applications online are not very popular, there are many developers that are adopting the VoiceXML in their development. Which means when you offer content for web browsers, mobile phones, you offer the same content via VoiceXML interface.
There is lot of services that could be available via voice and VoiceXML would be a great solution to bring this bridge. I saw for example ShowMyIP, which is a service aims to giving details about your IP address, and it was surprising when I find that they have a VoiceXML interface for their service.
Yahoo! the leader of online web portal is offering a VoiceXML of their service on http://phone.yahoo.com/, accessible as a paid service for $4.95/month
Yahoo! by Phone lets you listen to your email and voicemail, look up your address book, listen to stock quotes, weather, sports, and news just by calling 1-800-MY-YAHOO and speaking your commands.
Tiscali italia offer a mail by phone service using VoiceXML too. Lastminute.com also, the site which promotes special travel deals, offering their service since 2002 using VoiceXML and nuance technology.
Many others have make from VoiceXML their choice to develop IVR applications and the results are very promising. The W3C group is working now on the latest steps to release the VoiceXML 2.1 recommandations which will give VoiceXML many enhancement and new features to make it the leader of IVR application development.
