• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, August 2, 2007

Attention Alec Baldwin: Startup YouMail has introduced new features that let users share funny voicemail greetings and messages online. A new section of YouMail’s Web site allows subscribers to upload, rate and download outgoing greetings, much as they do with videos on sites like YouTube.

Launched last year, YouMail makes software that replaces a user’s mobile carrier’s own voicemail system. It lets people assign separate greetings to different callers, whether boss, spouse or friends. It also offers DitchMail, a feature that gets rid of ex-es and other unwanted callers quickly. A favorite: “We're sorry, you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service.” Click.

Now users can share all their favorite greetings on the YouMail site.

Among the most downloaded so far are “Voicemail Hell,” a spoof of convoluted corporate greetings that ends “press star twice, bark like a dog, spin in a circle, press ‘1’ 26 times, then wait for the beep.”

Users have also uploaded various greetings that feature audio from popular ad campaigns such as the Geico cavemen, Budweiser frogs and Taco Bell dog spots. “It’s another viral way to spread your ad message,” says Ken Brickley, co-founder and vice president of marketing at YouMail, which covers all major carriers except Sprint.

The company also added another feature in July that lets users send links or embed code in a Web page of voicemail messages left on YouMail.

The free service, also expanded its advertising program in July by signing up with ad network ValueClick. Customers now see banner ads when they check their voicemail online at YouMail.com.

“People like the ability to get messages online rather than only through the cell-phone,” says Brickley.