Ever have to call back a client or friend out of courtesy, but you hoped and prayed they didn’t pick up and you could just leave them a message instead?  You dial the number and listen to that first ring. “Please don’t pick up”, you are whispering. Ring number two….”please don’t pick up.”  Ring number three…”one more ring and I’m home free!”, you say.  Please give me voice mail, please, please. Then, at the last possible moment when you are home free, they pick up and now you are on the hook talking when you didn’t really want to!  It’s kind of like playing “call back phone roulette”.  You want the props for the call back but really don’t want to talk to the person you are calling.

Slydial to the rescue! slydial is a simple service that lets you call directly to someone’s voice mail. It’s as simple as dialing the special slydial phone number. At the prompt dial the person’s number you want to get directed to their voice mail. All done! Very easy but perfect for those awkward situations where you just want to play a little voice mail tag. Or break up with your girlfriend. Well, that’s a little cold.

The service is completely free at this time and you don’t even have to have an account. All you do is listen to a little audio ad. You can sign up for a MySlydial account which gives you more features like dial by name and click to slydial. With a premium account you can bypass the ads. At the time of this post they are of course in beta but we could definitely see more more features in the future for paid accounts.

If you are still wondering how would you might use this nifty little tool, check out the Slydial videos. They have some pretty good situations where Slydial will come in handy for you!