語音將成爲下一個殺手級應用嗎大綱

Ray Ozzie, the former Microsoft executive, has a revolutionary idea: Make phone calls cool again.
微軟公司（Microsoft）前高管雷o奧茲有一個革命性的創意：讓打電話再次變得“酷”起來。

It’s not clear that voice communication was ever cool. It was always more like a necessity. What is clear, however, is that it has been largely replaced by all sorts of real-time, text-based services, from SMS to the latest crop of mobile messaging apps. Ozzie thinks he’s found a way to revitalize the old-fashioned, voice-based phone call.
語音通訊似乎歷來和“酷”字沾不上邊，充其量只是一項必要的功能。很顯然，在很大程度上，語音通訊已經被各種基於文字的實時通訊服務取代了，比如短信和近來大量涌現的移動通訊應用。但是奧茲認爲，他找到了一種方法讓傳統的語音電話功能重新煥發青春。

“I passionately believe that there’s immense latent potential in voice to convey tone and emotion, to quickly resolve issues, to make decisions and to get things done,” he wrote in a blog post announcing the launch of his new company, Talko (sounds like “taco”). “There’s simply no faster and no more effective way to express essential emotions such as urgency, anxiety, understanding, confidence or trust. Quite simply, amazing things can happen when we just choose to talk.”
奧茲在一篇宣佈他的新公司Talko正式成立的博文中稱：“我認爲聲音中蘊含着無限的潛能，它可以傳遞語調和情感，可以快速解決問題、做出決定、處理事情。要想表達諸如緊急、焦慮、理解、信心或者信任之類的情緒，基本上沒有其他方式比聲音更快、更有效。當我們選擇用說話來交流時，總會發生一些令人驚奇的事情。”

One of the ways Ozzie hopes to make voice-based communication relevant again is by infusing it with other methods, including text and images. Talko’s mobile application, which recently launched on Apple’s iOS mobile operating system, lets people make ordinary phone calls, send text messages, and share photos without having to open a separate application. The app also allows users to bookmark and tag conversations, and automatically records calls for playback purposes. The app’s interface lends itself to conference calls. A user can easily create groups using their phone’s address book, and therefore push out voice messages or initiate live calls to more than one person at a time.
奧茲想到的令語音通訊重新煥發青春的方法之一，是把語音與文字、圖像等其它交流方法融合起來。Talko移動應用最近剛剛登陸蘋果iOS平臺，除了可以撥打電話、發送短消息之外，它還可以直接發送圖片，而無需再打開另外一個應用。另外，用戶還可以對通話做“書籤”或者標記，它還能自動對通話進行錄音，用於回放。用戶還可以非常方便地藉助這款應用的界面發起多人電話會議。用戶只需藉助手機通訊錄就可以輕鬆地創建對話羣，因此可以一次性向多人推送語音消息或發起多人進行實時對話。

“It won’t replace [email or messaging] but if we can increase the amount of talking I think it will help a lot,” Ozzie tells Fortune.
奧茲對《財富》（Fortune）表示：“它不會取代（電子郵件或短消息），但如果我們能增加語音通話的數量，我認爲它會起到很大幫助。”

The long-time entrepreneur founded the company with Matt Pope and Eric Patey. The trio has raised money from Andreessen Horowitz, Greylock Partners, Kapor Capital, and from Ozzie himself. (The company won’t disclose exactly how much it has raised to date.)
這家公司是奧茲與另外兩名聯合創始人馬特o蒲伯和埃裏克o佩蒂共同創辦的。他們已經從安德里森-霍洛維奇基金（Andreessen Horowitz）、格雷洛克合夥公司（Greylock Partners）、卡普爾資本（Kapor Capital）和奧茲本人那裏拉來了投資。（不過該公司沒有透露目前獲得的融資額。）

Earlier in his career, Ozzie was one of the masterminds of Lotus Notes, the collaboration software that was eventually acquired by IBM . He later sold another company, Groove Networks, to Microsoft in 2005 and worked for the Redmond-based tech giant until he left in 2010. More recently, he joined the board of directors at Hewlett-Packard .
在職業生涯的早期階段，奧茲曾是協作軟件Lotus Notes公司的主要幕後功臣之一，這家公司後來被IBM收購。奧茲又於2005年將他創辦的另一家公司Groove Networks賣給了微軟，然後在微軟工作了五年，2010年時從微軟離職。最近，他又加入了惠普公司（Hewlett-Packard）董事會。

Despite deep knowledge of the technology industry and previous successes to his name, it’s a tall order for Ozzie to bring voice back in vogue. If the company takes off, it’s going to need business customers to embrace the app, not just consumers. Today, Talko is free, but the company plans to charge a monthly subscription fee to users who want their calls saved indefinitely. (The free version of the app will only preserve conversations for a 10-day period.)
雖然奧茲對科技行業有很深的理解，此前的成功也讓他小有名聲，但要想讓語音通話再次流行起來，恐怕也不是容易的事。這家公司要想展翅高飛，它不光需要普通消費者捧場，還得受到企業用戶青睞才行。目前Talko仍然是免費的，但該公司計劃向那些想要無限期地存儲通話的用戶按月收取費用。（Talko的免費版只能將通話儲存10天）。

Talko isn’t the only startup trying to make money in this category. Twilio, a development platform for voice communication, lets corporate customers create their own apps. That company recently launched a feature which lets users easily integrate images in its communications.
Talko並非唯一一家試圖在這個領域賺錢的公司。另一個語音通訊開發平臺Twilio允許企業用戶構建自己的應用。該公司最近推出了一項新的功能，可以使用戶輕鬆地將圖片整合進通話中。

Voice is unlikely to make a strong comeback. (When’s the last time you checked your voicemail?) But it may have untapped potential when bundled with more fast-growing modern means of communication. Why shouldn’t you be able to quickly share photos of your surroundings while on a personal or work call?
語音貌似不大可能會強勢迴歸。（你最近一次檢查語音郵箱是什麼時候？）但一旦與各種熱門的現代化通訊手段結合在一起，它還是有很多潛能可以挖掘的。如果你能在打電話的時候（不論是私人電話還是工作電話）快速分享照片的話，爲什麼不這樣做呢？

Ozzie says he plans to integrate other functions—such as document or video sharing—into Talko’s calls in the near future. The company also plans to make the app available on Google’s Android mobile operating system as well as a web-based application.
奧茲表示，他計劃近期繼續在Talko中添加其它功能，比如文檔或視頻分享等。該公司還打算推出安卓版和網頁版應用。

One place Talko won’t be available anytime soon? Microsoft’s mobile operating system, Windows Phone. Apparently, you can take the boy out of Microsoft and take the Microsoft out of the boy.
不過有一個平臺是Talko短期內不打算登陸的，那就是微軟的Windows Phone系統。顯然，離開微軟之後，奧茲身上已經沒有一丁點“微軟情懷”了。