Facebook Messenger Tests Voice Transcription

Since 2013 Facebook Messenger has allowed users to send and receive voice clips. It an easy way of communicating with contacts particularly for those who don’t like typing a lot, but what if you’re at someplace where listening to the voice clip out loud won’t be appropriate, and you don’t have headphones on hand. In that case it would be nice to have voice transcription feature that will give you a text preview of what the clip contains. Facebook is now testing out this feature for Messenger.

The feature itself is nothing new. It is available in Google Voice even though the results may not always be totally spot on, given the fact that voice transcription isn’t really easy, so it makes sense that Facebook is testing it out on a small scale at first.

David Marcus, the man who runs Messenger, says that Facebook’s current plan is to test this new feature “at a tiny scale,” which means many of us won’t even get to see it. Those who will get access to it will be able to read a voice clip sent by their contact. Both parties in a conversation will be able to read the transcription unless the other one turns it off.

Before voice transcription is rolled out to more Messenger users Facebook is going to see what the initial group says about this feature. If it passes with flying colors perhaps it will be rolled out to more users before ultimately being made available to everybody.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: Cellphones
Tags: Apps, Facebook, facebook messenger