Short answer - Yes, I think so.
Maybe we could be soon witnesses of the voicemail evolving to a real
communication platform, enabling you to send and receive voice messages. First of all, what am I talking about? The last week announced iPhone has an application called Visual Voicemail which displays all the voice messages you have in a list, just like an e-mail inbox, so you no more have to call your voice mail, wait and listen through multiple messages to hear that specific one you want. All you need to do is choose from a list displaying the name of the caller and the date of recording. To make this happen Apple?s exclusive partner Cingular had to rework their voicemail servers to support this feature of pushing all messages to the phone and letting the user browse them.

So is it a weird idea if I imagine a new communication platform evolving on sending and receiving voice messages instead of boring SMS with all the typing and wannabe character emotions?

Well, let us think about it just for a second. What if this is really the beginning of a new way of messaging, and let it be said, a very pleasant and easy to use way it would be. Recording and sending short voice messages in situations, where you can?t or maybe don?t want to make a phone call.

Ugly guys and snoring

Sure as many of the voice features of any device, this one too would make you feel a bit scary talking to oneself in some situations, and it would have it?s evident limitations compared to text messaging - just like speaking on the phone, because seriously, who wants to record a voice message like ?Oh, you can not even imagine how this ugly guy snores next to me...? on a crowded plane?

For that I think the SMS, just like the e-mail and other text messaging forms are here to stay for a very long time, but maybe iPhone?s Visual Voicemail could be the first sign of something new evolving.