Jott’s Free Services (Including Their iPhone App) Ending February 2
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Yet another victim of the economic times, the amazing voice to text note service Jott is ending its free offering, including their iPhone app, on February 2.
In a long post on their website (included after the break) one of the company founders explains this as a necessary step as the company works to move toward profitability as quickly as possible.
I know a lot of people who live by Jott’s free services who will be rather unhappy about this. (I had taken a year’s subscription in order to get access to longer "Jotts.)
There is some good news-
1. Services for paid members remain the same
2. The monthly cost of Jott’s basic paid plan is just $3.95 a month.
3. While not the same product, reQall remains in free beta and does a superb job of voice transcription (in addition to a whole host of additional goodies).
4. A new version of Jott’s iPhone app is on the way.
The blog post continues below or your can visit the Jott website HERE.
Dear Jott customers,
If you’re reading this, you’ve probably heard that we’re ending Jott’s free services (Jott Basic and Jott Notepad for the iPhone). Unfortunately, it’s true, beginning on February 2nd. Plans for current paying customers are not changing.
I know you’ll have questions, so I wanted to get out in front and tell you why we’re doing this. If you already know you want to upgrade, scroll down for instructions (and a nice discount), but either way I hope you’ll read further.
Our #1 priority is to keep Jott a company that innovates on behalf of customers. It’s why Shree and I started the company in early 2006, and it’s a passion shared by everyone who works here.
Whether you are a paid or a free customer, we thank you for all of the support you’ve given us over the past couple of years, and the support you’ll hopefully give us in the future.
Why is Jott ending its free services?
As we’ve said many times, one of our goals was to always offer a
high quality
, free version of Jott. But as with many businesses right now, the economic environment is forcing a change in plans. When we started, we made quality our top priority, and we will always be committed to this. As you know, we use a combination of automated speech recognition and human quality assurance to deliver this, and it costs real money to do it well.
While we’ve made remarkable progress at innovating costs out of the system, the current climate is forcing us to focus 100% of our energy on getting to profitability. The great news is that with this change we are within sight of that goal.
Why can’t you pay for the free service with advertising, which was the plan?
It’s a great question – in short, the model is not viable right now. This is true for several reasons: 1) it would have required plastering the product with so much advertising that we’d ruin the experience; 2) ads are a terrible fit for important features like email delivery, Jott Links, and Jotts to Others; and 3) all indications are that advertising rates are going to see an even bigger hit in the next year. We don’t want to bet the company, and the utility that tens of thousands of you pay for, on a model that is not sustainable right now.
Jott’s price – $3.95/month – is not free of course, but it is affordable. We’ve had many paying customers tell us that the stress-relief, time savings and performance edge they get from the service makes it a bargain.
