Alltel has magical feature that will let you read voicemail messages. Expensive, but should please people who violently hate voicemail. (Like, me, for example.) [NYT]
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There are similar services available from 3rd party's for other cell phone carriers:
[www.youmail.com]
[www.grandcentral.com]
These work by forwarding your calls to the youmail and grandcentral services so make sure your cell phone carrier does not charge you for those forwards!
In this case, turning the VM to text is smart because it gives you a written record of the call an its content. Very important if anything is said that shouldn't and you need proof of a person's words later and don't feel like finding a way to turn your VM into MP3s.
LiveJournal has that for it's paid members. You post by phone a message, and it does a rough voice to text translation. Others can go and clean it up.
I think it's extra (I don't have it) but Vonage offers this feature too.
You could just change your greeting to "I never check my voicemail. Either send me a text or call back later." Ends those long rambling messages that never get to the point, too.
With callwave I have been able to do almost the same thing. It sends me a text of what the person said on the message. All for free.