How it Works:

Just send a message to: (773) 273-9947 with your reminder.  Remember Task.fm understands natural language, so write the message as if you were talking to your assistant.  For example:

remind me to pick up the dry cleaning in 3 hours

Note: This is a pro feature for upgraded members of Task.fm and currently only supported in the U.S (we will role out to more countries soon).  To upgrade visit this page.

Also, remember this is an Alpha or experimental feature – so you may experience some bugs.   If you do please let us know.

What do you think of the new feature?

Development on Task.fm started about a year ago – let me take you back there to a time where I was unorganised, had no motivation and my memory was shocking.  Here’s the story of how and why Task.fm was born.

“Anthony don’t forget to call such and such.  Its already been a week and shes expecting your call.”  2 minutes later and i had forgotten I was meant to call such and such.  Even after writing down that I needed to “remember to call such and such” I had forgotten to look at the piece of paper. Such and such never got that call.

Does this sound familiar?  Diaries, calendars, todo lists are all great…if you constantly keep checking them.  I have a shocking memory and unfortunately I need to remember a lot of things.  I’ve tried diaries, post it notes, lists, stars in Gmail…the list goes on.  Often they work for a while until a forget to look!

You can see where the story is heading.  I got fed up chasing app after app hoping I might strike gold,  that I decided to go it alone and build my own.  This decision luckily also coincided with me needing a “career”.  And so task.fm was born.

I didn’t want to build another web based task list or notetaker.  There are plenty of those already.   Instead I simply wanted to forget – to outsource my memory to someone else.

The very first version of Task.fm took me and a virtual team less than a month to build.  It sucked.  There was no natural language recognition, no sms functionality or even email reminders!  It did however make an amazing prank calling tool because voice reminders was the first thing we built.   Of course no one but the team used this version and it was many months later before the public got let in to my project. And thankfully new updates are pushed to the site every week, which means the user experience keeps getting better.

When the public first saw Task.fm the reaction was mainly very positive.  And the site has since been featured on Lifehacker, Mashable, ReadWriteWeb, and even the Today Show.  Unfortunately almost every review of the app compared us to the wonderful task manager RememberTheMilk.   Thats some tough competition – but luckily for you guys, im not focused on creating RememberTheMilk, instead i’m trying to give you the closest thing to a personal assistant as possible in the shape of a web app.

The premise of Task.fm is extremely simple – you ask it to remind you of something and it shall.  Try it – “remind me to pay the water bill in 2 weeks”.   In two weeks you’ll get an sms, email, voice call or Twitter reminder (you choose) letting you know you should pay the water bill.   You’ll notice you don’t need to work out any dates or times – Task.fm is smart. But unlike a personal assistant to always available wherever you are.  Create reminders using email, twitter or even a phone call using your voice.   You don’t need to know any dates, and its all done using natural language.

But does it actually work?  According to the logs im officially Task.fm’s number one user having created more reminders and spent more time on the site than anyone else.  So, although being horribly biased, I am appropriately qualified to say it works like a charm.  I am now constantly forgetting everything and outsourcing it all to Task.fm.  My memory process – In through ears out through fingers onto keyboard.

So what’s in store for Task.fm users in the future?  More integrations and more smarts.  Integration wise, our goal is to make creating a reminder so simple it requires no thought.  So expect to see Task.fm integrated with a number of other technologies such as IM.   “Smarts” are also constantly being added.  Thanks to you, the users and your feedback, we have a huge list of terms and phrases that our personal assistant should understand in the future.    Remember, if you ever input something that Task.fm doesn’t understand drop us a line so we can add it.

So start forgetting!  Let Task.fm remember for you.

Anthony Feint is the founder of Task.fm.  He blogs here and tweets here

Voice reminders work by converting your text based reminder into speech -  Task.fm will then call you at the time you specified and read aloud your reminder.  You need never pay for a ridiculously priced hotel wakeup call again!  Pro Task.fm users get unlimited voice reminders each month.

Pro taskers – try sending yourself a voice reminder.  Personally, I have found voice reminders to be more effective than sms reminders.  Simply because they force you to listen!

All pro users can now receive voice reminders.  Just visit the settings page to enter your “voice reminder number”

As always let us know what you think of the feature.

Photo By – Splorp

We’ve pushed a new feature for users, that allows you to dial a toll free number and create a reminder using nothing but your voice.

After leaving your reminder, it will be automatically transcribed, converted into a reminder (we extract any dates and times) and then add it to your account.  All in less than a minute.

Its fast and very simple to use – just follow the prompts.  For more detailed instructions visit this page

Voice transcription is a pro feature.  If you’re not already a pro Tasker, you can upgrade for just $3.99 a month.  Not only do you get the voice features (transcription and phone reminders) but unlimited sms reminders, contacts, groups and more.

Upgrade Your Account

Image Credit – Mugley

Our pro accounts have been designed to make you more organised and more productive.

Pro Features:

• Unlimited SMS reminders – super handy for reminders on the go
• Unlimited Voice Call Reminders – great for wake-up calls (also alot cheaper than what hotels charge!). U.S and Canada only atm.
• Unlimited Contacts – Store unlimited contacts in your account
• Unlimited Groups – Send unlimited reminders to an unlimited number of groups
• Early Feature Access – Get access to the latest “in development” features as well as the latest natural language recognition engine
• No Ads – Enjoy an ad free interface
• Satisfaction of knowing your supporting Task.fm’s development!

To upgrade login to your account and click the upgrade link

New Pro Features Coming Soon

A number of exciting new pro only features will be rolled out over the coming month starting next week.  This will include new ways to create reminders.

Do you have any ideas or suggestions on what we can add to the pro accounts – let me know.

Thanks to All Existing Pro Members

You should have received an email sometime this past week from me.  Once again thanks – and a free 6 month pro account is on the way.

Upgrade to Pro

Tags Made Simple

Adding a tag to a reminder is as simple as including a hashtag.  For example:

pay the water bill next Tuesday #bills

Its really that simple.  You can also add multiple tags to a reminder.

Works on Twitter and Through Email

Hashtags were born on Twitter, so it makes sense for us to fully support tagging on Twitter.  So when creating reminders via email (reminder@task.fm) or on Twitter (direct message @taskfm)  just include a tag.

Even Works When You Don’t

You only need to create a tag once.  After that, we recognise reminders with the same tags and automatically tag them for you.

Search

You can search all your reminders based on tags or keywords.  Try the new search box in your members area.

Try out all the new features on Task.fm

You can now send reminders to multiple people and setup contact groups to easily blast out handy reminders to your team.

As Simple as Sending an Email

Sending reminders to multiple people is as simple as CC’ing anybody when creating a reminder via email.  You can also send a reminder out to multiple people via the advanced reminder editor.

Groups

Whenever you CC a contact, we’ll keep track and add them to the contacts page within the members area.  You can then group contacts and blast out a group reminder.

Pro Accounts

Pro accounts get to store unlimited contacts and groups.  Of course they also get to send more sms reminders and experience and ad free interface.

Upgrade to Pro and help support Task.fm

Once you have synced your Twitter account with Task.fm (can be done on the Settings page in your members area) you will see an option to set Twitter as the reminder format.

On the reminders page, a Twitter icon will be visible, that allows you to set the reminder format with one click.  You can also choose Twitter as the “default” reminder type in your settings panel.

So if you’re a Twitter addict, you now never need to leave to stay organised!  Check out this squidoo lens on Twitter Reminders for more details.

p.s – This was a user requested feature!  We listen to all your suggestions so keep em coming.

Don’t have a Task.fm account?  Grab a free account today at www.task.fm