It’s a wired world in which we live. With each passing year, we rely more and more upon our ability to be plugged in, wherever we are, 24/7. The digital world doesn’t come to a halt when you need to drive somewhere, but trying to stay connected while on the road can be illegal… or deadly. Now, a new app offers a way to keep you plugged in while remaining safe and sound.

This month, we’re shining our Client Spotlight on our energetic friends at messageLOUD, a relatively new company that offers the only app in any OS that reads both texts and e-mails out loud. We sat down with Garin Toren, founder of messageLOUD, to learn a little more about how this ingenious creation will make busy commuters’ lives easier and safer.

Tell us a bit about messageLOUD’s mission.
Distracted driving is the leading cause of teenage deaths in the United States, with 10 teenage deaths per day. That’s 3,600 deaths annually in the U.S. alone. This problem is so big, but it doesn’t get the attention that other issues get. It’s hard to know why.

The goal with messageLOUD is to use technology to solve a real-world problem. We may not be able to fully solve problems like drinking and driving with technology, but we can use technology to fix distracted driving.

How so?
The act of trying to multitask while driving stems from people’s fear of missing out. People pick up their phones to check e-mail, texts, and messages because they want to know what’s going on. It’s easy to get into that cycle of picking up your phone and reading it in the car. That’s why 26% of all car accidents are a result of distracted driving.

So we thought, why not create a solution that falls within the accepted safety standards in a vehicle? The problem with many tech companies is that they’re too far on the wrong side of the leading edge—customers don’t adopt their tech because it’s too advanced, or it may be so advanced that their solutions contribute to the problem they’re trying to solve. I could name one such product in this space that’s so complicated to use that it’s even more distracting than directly checking your messages yourself.

For our solution, we knew that listening to things in the car is safe, as is touching things like the radio, indicator buttons, or gear lever. Cars work on touch. After all these years, there’s never been a piece of legislation calling to put an end to people listening to things like radio or podcasts in their car.

So we put those two factors together—using safe actions like touching and listening to tackle the problem caused by real-time messaging.

How does it work?
Very simply, turn on messageLOUD, put it in Drive mode, and incoming messages will be read to you automatically. Most users, once they’ve read the message, do nothing. We do offer control with full-screen gestures (delete, call back, and dismiss), or you can set up an auto-responder for texts that lets the sender know that you’ll get back to them when you’re finished driving.

messageLOUD pulls in text and instant messages and supports 99% of all emails. We’re about to add WhatsApp functionality, Facebook Messages is coming in a couple of months, then Skype a few months after that. And if it’s warranted, we’ll look at the Telegram Messenger app later this year.

How did you start working with ModSquad?
For us, working with ModSquad was a really important decision. First of all, we conducted extensive product testing, three months of global testing. Many apps are done on the cheap, and they’re buggy. We’ve been incredibly stable since launch.

The same thinking went into the support side. Most apps offer poor customer support, if you manage to get a reply at all! Our goal was to have e-mail responses to customers in less than one hour. Working with the Mods is allowing us to reach that goal. And the feedback from the customer base has been fantastic.

Sounds like you have a hit on your hands.
We set lofty goals and our first few months have blown past those targets. We’re expecting even more pickup in the business market, from the road warriors who are driving to business meetings or sales calls. The average American drives 102 minutes a day, which is just dead time. With messageLOUD, you arrive at your destination with a clean inbox. All for less than a cup of coffee per month per user. We’re super-thrilled to have found a technical solution to this real-world problem, at a price point that’s palatable to the consumer.

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