BT is supporting homeless charity Shelter in its 40th anniversary year with a campaign called 'Text Aid'. As part of the campaign, they've brought back the legendary and hugely popular former Dr Who, Tom Baker to voice their text to landline service. Customers who send a text to a landline will have their message read out by Tom Baker and BT will also donate 2p from every message sent to Shelter. You can also customise your messages with 'Jinglez' or include an exclusive Tom Baker audio file from a selection here. So what better way to send a Christmas greeting than have Dr Who say it for you.Not only that, but BT has created a whole new beat combo by bringing together Tom Baker and 1960s pop icons, The Kinks and recorded a new version of the band's number 1 'You Really Got Me' and it's all for charity. You can hear a preview and preorder the track at TextAid. The tune will be on sale officially on 7Digital, itunes and emusic from 18 December. The plan is to raise at least £100k for Shelter over the Christmas period.
I should add that the service doesn't work if you sent to a landline in Eire or if you send a text from a T-Mobile phone (why on earth not when they were one of the first, if not *the* first network to offer it??). You can still text from a T-Mobile phone but you get the standard voice service which is frankly pretty weird and don't get to play with Tom Baker's voice which is a real pity. Come on T-Mobile - sort it out!
Yes, unfortunately T-Mobile use their own computerised voice, rather than just sending the text message to BT. They should set up a code you can type in at the beginning to force it to be sent as a text.
ReplyDeleteI created the song btw... Hope you like it!
Yeah, I tried the t-mobile version and it's not the best user experience in the world. Having listened to the files on your site, I think the Tom Baker stuff sounds way better and much less like an automaton.
ReplyDeleteI like the song too Mark! I hope it raises lots of money for textaid :)