Miss-Delectable
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Hub co. helps deaf get the message - Business - BostonHerald.com
Not long ago Kerry Thompson received a voicemail message from her doctor’s office asking her to call back to confirm an upcoming appointment or risk losing it.
A seemingly easy thing to do, but for Thompson, who is deaf, it requires finding someone to listen to the message and tell her what it says.
For Thompson, there was a simple solution to this kind of dilemma: send a text message.
Thompson is the spokeswoman for Text4Deaf.com, a new Boston-based service that launched yesterday designed to make text messaging easier.
The site lets users create scheduled reminders for different appointments. Subscribers can get a voicemail greeting that asks callers to send a text message instead. “I believe the deaf community would greatly appreciate a service community . . . that would send reminder texts instead of making insane reminder calls,” Thompson said in an e-mail.
Text4Deaf.com also allows users to send text messages to cell phones under any carrier in the United States or Canada. By using the Web site, people can type messages on a computer keyboard rather than going through the slow process of using a cell-phone keypad, Thompson said.
Users can create chat messages they can send to a number of cell phones and receive responses as a group. The messages get archived so people can view them later.
The cost of the service is free for up to 10 texts per month. Unlimited texts costs $2.95 per month or $19.95 a year.
Text messaging has become a popular means of communicating for many cell-phone subscribers.
But for many in the deaf community text-messaging is more than a fad, it’s become a way of life, Thompson said.
Not long ago Kerry Thompson received a voicemail message from her doctor’s office asking her to call back to confirm an upcoming appointment or risk losing it.
A seemingly easy thing to do, but for Thompson, who is deaf, it requires finding someone to listen to the message and tell her what it says.
For Thompson, there was a simple solution to this kind of dilemma: send a text message.
Thompson is the spokeswoman for Text4Deaf.com, a new Boston-based service that launched yesterday designed to make text messaging easier.
The site lets users create scheduled reminders for different appointments. Subscribers can get a voicemail greeting that asks callers to send a text message instead. “I believe the deaf community would greatly appreciate a service community . . . that would send reminder texts instead of making insane reminder calls,” Thompson said in an e-mail.
Text4Deaf.com also allows users to send text messages to cell phones under any carrier in the United States or Canada. By using the Web site, people can type messages on a computer keyboard rather than going through the slow process of using a cell-phone keypad, Thompson said.
Users can create chat messages they can send to a number of cell phones and receive responses as a group. The messages get archived so people can view them later.
The cost of the service is free for up to 10 texts per month. Unlimited texts costs $2.95 per month or $19.95 a year.
Text messaging has become a popular means of communicating for many cell-phone subscribers.
But for many in the deaf community text-messaging is more than a fad, it’s become a way of life, Thompson said.