Just a week ago, I was writing about Jott. I have been using it since December to leave quick voice messages for myself and close friends which would be automatically transcribed to e-mails. I wrote about my experiences here.

Well, here is the bad news…as of September 8, Jott is no longer a free service. While one plan is still listed as free, it removes the service’s best feature–being able to send messages straight to someone’s e-mail.

A quick internet search of “alternatives to Jott” put me onto this Lifehacker post. In a few minutes, I was up and running with reQall.

The direction are pretty straightforward. You will be asked to set up a free account by supplying your name, choosing a user name and password, providing the phone number (or numbers) from which you are going to be calling, and supplying an e-mail address.

In the “Notifications” section, I put check marks beside “e-mail.” Finally, I added the reQall phone number (1-888-973-7255) to my BlackBerry contacts and set it as a speed dial key.

I composed several sample messages. Within 10-15 minutes, the messages I left were showing up in my e-mail.

The major way I had used Jott was to send reminders to myself, so reQall is a good substitute. What about sending messages to someone else? Add them as a contact at the reQall site and you can “share” a message.

What you have read here are my perceptions after just a few minutes with reQall. Does anyone else had more experience with this or similar services?