Voicemail - A Technology in Tailspin

In the not so distant past, voicemail was a cornerstone of everyday communication management.  A USA TODAY article, however, reports that on Vonage, the number of voice messages left is down 8% from a year ago and the number of messages retrieved is down 14% from a year ago.  Texting and instant chat technologies are generally preferred by many and voice mail transcription services that convert messages for email or text delivery allow users to bypass the standard voicemail system prompts that require the messages to be processed in chronological order.  I guess this is in-line with the trend away from voice communications in general (i.e., a preference for text or chat over voice calls), particularly with younger communicants.