Unfortunately I still don’t see the Themes tab in my Gmail settings, but Google is an expert of the slow rollout, so we can all expect them sometime in the next few days. I’m partial to the ascii/Terminal theme, though it’s probably a touch on the impractical side. Other than that, a lot of the offerings actually look really nice—especially compared with some of the lame duck skins Google offers in iGoogle. If I see themes in my account soon, I’ll update the post with larger pictures. Let’s hear which themes you like best—and whether or not they’re actually enabled in your accounts yet—in the comments. Thanks Mark!

Note: Both services use a basic voicemail-forwarding trick that works on any major carrier’s phone, and both respond fairly quickly to get you MP3-quality recordings of your voicemail.

I tested one of YouMail’s free transcription services, which the company says “vary in quality” compared to paid plans, and are limited to one contact or five messages from anybody, against MessageSling’s one-week trial of their 20-message-per-month “Basic” plan. I’d have liked to compare a YouMail paid service against MessageSling, but “ordering” a free plan from YouMail somehow blocked my attempts to buy a paid plan. If and when I can try out a paid plan, I’ll post the transcription results here.

YouMail

What’s free:

• Web-based visual voicemail listings and dial-in voicemail checking
• Caller ID service
• Customized greetings for specific contacts or groups
• Download messages as MP3s
• Folder organizing and archiving of messages
• Unwanted caller blocking (hang-up before voicemail)
• Non-Flash site for iPhone/Blackberry/WinMobile

Message notification: Email with direct link to Flash voicemail player, or text message with caller ID, number, and voicemail stats (left or not, duration), with transcription stub if enabled.

Ads?: Corner ad on notification emails (in-house at the moment), banners and right-side box ads on voicemail page, and text ads at bottom of SMS notifications.

Transcription Plans:

Transcription accuracy (free plan):
What was said (MP3):

Hi Kevin, it’s, uh, Kevin. I’m calling to test out transcription. See you in Tallahassee tomorrow. Bye.

What came in the text:

Hi Kevin it s uh Kevin. I m calling 2 test out transcription. See u (cut off).

Online transcription:

Hi Kevin it s uh Kevin. I m calling to test out transcription. See you in Tallahassee tomorrow bye.

Your web-based inbox:

MessageSling

What’s free:

• Web-based visual voicemail listings and dial-in voicemail checking
• Customized greetings for specific contacts and groups
• Download messages as MP3s
• Gmail-style message labeling and search
• Can edit transcripts of voicemails and update.

Ads?: None in emails, text alerts, or on site (so far).

Message notification: Email with message MP3 attached and voicemail stats, and/or text message with phone number (and contact, if in book), voicemail stats, and transcription stub if enabled.

Transcription Plans:

Transcription accuracy (”Basic” plan):
What was said (MP3):

Hi Kevin, it’s, uh, Kevin. I’m calling to test out transcription. See you in Tallahassee tomorrow. Bye.

What came in the text:

Hi Kevin, it’s Kevin. I’m calling to test out transcription. S (cut off).

Online transcription:

Hi Kevin, it’s Kevin. I’m calling to test out transcription. See you in Tallahassee tomorrow. Bye.

Your web-based inbox:

That’s enough from our side of the screen—let’s hear how users of the two services, and those just catching up on them, split the difference in the poll below. If you’ve got another similar service that does the job for you, choose “Other” and tell us about it in the comments.

Which voicemail replacement service appeals to you?
( polls)

DimDim not only offers free sign-ups for those wanting to host seminars for up to 20 participants, but offers up its hosting platform for free as an open source package, for those with the server space to do something with it. DimDim doesn’t ask much more than a username, email, and password, and only from the host—those you invite to join only need to hit a connection link in the email that gets sent out when your webinars are scheduled and then starting.

The system requirements for anyone participating are basically having a decently high-speed connection and be using either Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Safari. If a host wants to screencast their desktop, it usually requires a separate (free) program to be downloaded and launched automatically.

Each sign-up also gets a unique access key for conference calling—the old style of tele-conferencing. I tried calling in while hosting a meeting, but ended up being alone in a conference call, waiting for others to join. So either DimDim is offering this functionality as a separate enticement for lower-tech users, or I’m not quite doing it right (equally likely).

You can set up DimDim conferences in a lot of different ways, depending on your own setup and those of your participants. You can go audio & video, audio-only, or none of the above, if you just want to text-chat. You can rotate three microphone privileges amongst three other participants, choose whether your guests can see each other or not, and (perhaps the most helpful feature) set a time limit to your meeting, which ticks away in the upper-right corner and might help everyone stay a bit more focused.

I tested DimDim out with my (very patient) wife sitting in the same room and a friend connecting from across the city. Two were on residential cable connections and the third on DSL. The whiteboard, chat, and audio functions were surprisingly snappy and responsive, though I found out that using my laptop’s built-in microphone and speakers was a bad idea on many levels—everybody could hear the pounding of my typing, and there were a number of looping echos. The desktop view sharing from my system was a bit laggy, however, and occasionally required my asking the guests to manually hit “refresh” in the main window. That’s using residential upload speeds, though, and dependent on what else was uploading at the time.

Here’s a full shot of DimDim in action, scaled just a bit to fit on this page. (Note: I lack a decent webcam, so we used another participant’s camera to try out video conferencing, not shown in this shot):

In all, I found DimDim to give its free users a surprising amount of flexibility and functionality for the price, and would be interested to find out what options set apart the other webinar-hosting companies in the field.

Got any tips or experiences to share in hosting web conferences? Wish you weren’t invited to so many? Tell us your take on webinars in the comments. (Thanks to mostlybob</> for the inspiration!)

Google Video Chat (Web-based, Windows/Mac OS X)

Google launched video chat inside Gmail earlier this week, and already it’s become a popular option for video chat (that’s the power of the GOOG!). Its quick popularity is in no small part thanks to its seamless integration with Gmail—if you’ve already got a Gmail account, using it is kind of a no-brainer. You will need to install a free plug-in to get started with Google’s video chat, but this one works no matter what operating system you’re using. Video chat integration isn’t yet available on all accounts, but if it hasn’t already, it should be coming to a Gmail account near you very soon.

TokBox (Web-based, Supports all platforms)

TokBox is a web-based video chat application. Apart from its standard homepage, where you can login and initiate video chats with anyone through your web browser, TokBox has made its name by integrating with other services. For example, you can install the TokBox for Facebook Firefox extension to start quick video calls with any of your Facebook friends. Likewise, if you’re a fan of online instant messaging application Meebo, you can start a video chat from a Meebo IM session using TokBox. If you’d prefer a desktop component, TokBox also has an Adobe AIR desktop app available on their homepage.

Skype (Windows/Mac/Linux)

Skype is a popular VoIP application capable of making PC-to-PC and PC-to-phone calls; as long as you’ve got a webcam, any PC-to-PC call can instantly become a video chat. With the release of Skype 4.0 Beta on Windows, video chat on Skype has been bigger and better than ever. Skype’s cross-platform compatibility and generally smooth video are the key elements that keep users coming back to Skype for their video chat needs.

iChat (Mac OS X)

iChat is the default instant messaging application bundled with Mac OS X. iChat boasts multi-user video chat (up to 4 people at once), iChat Theater for sharing and viewing files during a video chat, and a Backdrops feature that allows users to customize what’s behind them (e.g., you’re in Paris). The downer: iChat is only available on OS X.

Vsee (Windows only)

Vsee is a free Windows videoconferencing application. In addition to VSee’s straight up video chat options, it’s also designed as a collaboration tool. So, as their demo video explains, you could collaborate with a colleague on a Photoshop document (even if that person doesn’t have Photoshop installed) through screen sharing, and you can share that file (or any document, for that matter) by dragging the file onto your chat video. VSee Free supports video chats with up to four people simultaneously, while the paid version supports up to eight at a time.

This week’s honorable mentions go out to Meebo and Digsby, both of which support video chat through the above-mentioned TokBox.

Whether or not your fave made the short list, tell us more about the video chat app you love in the comments.