Most households use answering machines but premium voicemail on the way
I didn't know that a majority of people still use answering machines. But a new breed of premium voicemail systems are hoping to change that according to this Wall Street Journal story (subscription required):
About 76% of households use a machine to answer the phone, while just 18% subscribe to voicemail, according to a 2002 survey by the Yankee Group, a consulting firm. While voicemail is more flexible, many consumers find machines are cheaper and easier to use.
...America Online, a unit of AOL Time Warner Inc., is marketing voicemail directly to its 26.2 million U.S. subscribers, who can pay $5.95 a month to access their voice messages over the phone or by e-mail. The service, introduced in March, alerts users of an incoming call with a popup window on their computer, if their phone line is being used, and shows who is calling. If the caller leaves a voicemail, the user is alerted immediately by e-mail and can stream the message over the Internet as a WAV file, or downloaded as an MP3 file, two common audio formats. Users can also get their voicemail by calling a toll-free number.