Audioboo sends audio from your iPhone to the web, and it's fun
We have Flickr for our photos, and we have YouTube or Vimeo for our videos. We have dozens of sites for our words.
What places exist for us to store our audio?
There are a handful, and the one that comes closest to Flickr is Soundcloud, but even that isn't the same at all in spirit. Flickr is for the sharing of creativity; Soundcloud is aimed at musicians and audio professionals who need to share large files as part of their working day.
Huffduffer is wonderful, so nice to look at as well as to listen to. But it's not made for storing audio, only for easily playing audio that's already hosted elsewhere.
Today I discovered Audioboo, which fills a little niche all of its own. It's not a Flickr-for-audio, at least, it isn't yet. But it is a lovely idea coupled with some smart mobile software.
The Audioboo team are the first to admit that their web site is a little ropey:
"We debated long and hard about releasing this version, since there’s a much better one in the works and the website needs a fair amount of work. But we decided to get it out there and see what happens."
But after 10 minutes of playing with their iPhone app, I'm enjoying myself. It lets you capture and record audio (crisply and clearly), tag with with text tags (meh) and annotate it with a photo (oh - fabulous idea), then fling the whole lot up to the web in an instant.
The app's user feedback is fabulous. When you're uploading, the screen slowly fills upwards - and helpful text notes are displayed on top. When you're playing back other people's audio snippets, you see the circular playback progress widget that is shown when playing music previews from the iTunes Store. When recording, there's only one button (for start and stop), and a gorgeous levels display. It's smart, but it's simple.
As for the web site: well, they're right: it does need a fair amount of work. Stuff is missing, stuff doesn't work, and it's very basic. You can see your uploads, there's a widget for embedding them elsewhere (as you might have noticed scattered around this post), and you can link your Audioboo account to Twitter or Facebook. But there's still lots of work to do.
But there are plenty of signs that these people have clue. Their blog is what all corporate blogs should be - honest, open, and funny. There are feeds hidden in all sorts of places. You can get a feed of new posts, of a user's posts, or subscribe to specific audio tags in iTunes if you like.
So I have high hopes for Audioboo; I shall be uploading more silly songs and daft whisperings in future, I'm sure.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
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