Volume 2, Issue 2 - Feb./March 2002
   
 

Subdialogs

By Rob Marchand

(Continued from Part 1)

Mailing Lists

The W3C maintains a public mailing list for VoiceXML issues. See http://www.w3c.org/Voice for details.

A Yahoo Groups mailing list related to VoiceXML is relatively active. See for details.

SmartGroups (http://www.smartgroups.com) also hosts a VoiceXML mailing list.

Many of the VoiceXML vendors also maintain mailing lists.

Books

Books on VoiceXML continue to appear. Here are a few that I'm aware of:

  • The VoiceXML Handbook: Understanding and Building the Phone-Enabled Web (Bob Edgar)
  • Voice Application Development with VoiceXML (Rick Beasley, Kenneth Michael Farley, John O'Reilly, Leon Squire)
  • Early Adopter VoiceXML (Stephen Breitenbach, et. al.)
  • VoiceXML: Developer's Guide with CD-ROM (Chetan Sharma, Jeff Kunins)
  • Voice Enabling Web Applications: VoiceXML and Beyond (Kenneth R. Abbott)

When you're buying a book, make sure it covers the version and features of VoiceXML in which you're interested.

User Groups

There is not a great deal of user group access yet. However, here a few.

  • Italian VoiceXML User Group (http://www.vxmlitalia.com/)

  • Boston VoiceXML User Group

The Boston VUG is perhaps the most active. They meet on a monthly basis, and have interesting speakers at each meeting. Contact Dennis McCarthy () for further information.

Developer Tools and Sites

The following companies provide VoiceXML tools (either on-line, or standalone). Check out the e-zines and other sites (such as http://www.ctlabs.com) for reviews.

  • Nuance Communications (http://www.nuance.com)
  • BeVocal (http://www.bevocal.com)
  • GetVocal (http://www.getvocal.com)
  • Voxeo (http://www.voxeo.com)
  • IBM (http://www.ibm.com)
  • HeyAnita (http://www.heyanita.com)
  • Telera (http://www.telera.com)
  • Tellme Studio (http://studio.tellme.com)
  • VoiceGenie Technologies (http://developer.voicegenie.com)
  • General Magic (http://www.generalmagic.com)

Online Magazines

There are a few on-line 'e-zines' that you might find useful. You are, of course, reading one of them now.

  • VoiceXML Review (http://www.voicexmlreview.com)

The VoiceXML Review is a monthly publication that provides columns and feature articles addressing issues such as the evolving VoiceXML Specification, related specifications (for example, the Speech Recognition Grammar Specification, and others that are used by VoiceXML).

The XML Review covers all things XML (both on-line, and in a print edition). This magazine has published quite a number of articles that address VoiceXML, including developer and tool site reviews, and some introductory material.

Summary

A year ago, it was a bit of a chore finding information about VoiceXML. Now, you'll have to be careful not to trip over it. Visit these sites, and start bookmarking!

What's Next?

Next month, back to the grindstone. We'll tackle a new VoiceXML problem, soon to be determined.

If there are particular things you'd like to see covered in a future First Words column, drop me a line at , and I'll try to write about it.

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