iphone

Got an iPhone? Get AudioBoo

Neville writes about the latest service from Best Before – the guys behind the awesome turn-your-macbook-into-a-videobooth service Videoboo – which is Audioboo.

What you do with Audioboo is simple: record audio on your iPhone and publish the recordings to your Audioboo account on the web, complete with your geo-location data if you choose to include that via an option on the iPhone when you first use the app.

Your account has an RSS feed so anyone can subscribe to that feed and get all your boos.

I’ve been playing with Audioboo for the past few days and, frankly, I’m addicted. I do have an affinity for recording audio, I admit, far more than with video, so if I find something appealing in this area, I’m probably predisposed towards wanting to like it.

Here’s a video showing just how easy it is to record quick podcasts and get them online with Audioboo:

Hello AudioBoo from Mark Rock on Vimeo.

I’m hoping to be using this service a lot – especially when social reporting at events. Will people be more willing to talk into a phone than a video camera? Let’s find out!

Some Holiday Picks

Photo credit: Ravages

I’ve seen some interesting stuff pop up in my RSS over the last few days – here’s some of them:

  • Shel Holtz has a really interesting post about using Ning as a communication and collaboration platform for projects.
  • BookSprouts is an online community for readers. There are others.
  • MacMod will be a Mac only social network
  • Neville has been having problems with his iPhone. I’m waiting on a call from my local Apple Store for my second replacement. They really are the Alpha Romeo of smartphones.
  • John Self picks his books of 2008.
  • TweeTree is a new service that does what Quotably used to do: put Twitter conversations into a sensible, threaded order.

My iPhone Apps

Since the iPhone has allowed the installation of third party apps, the utility of the device has increased massively. It just does so much! Here are the ones I find myself using most often:

  • Twitterific – The best twitter client I have used on the iPhone so far. I am still a Twhirl fan on the mac itself, but that isn’t mobile just yet. Still using the ad-supported one, think they made a mistake when they designed the ads to be so easy to ignore!
  • Facebook – the only way I really use Facebook these days. Speeds things up a treat compared to the web version, and the inbuilt messaging service works really well
  • WordPress – only posted once (last night’s test message) using this so far, but it’s great for writing little drafts or notes for potential posts and getting them started
  • EndEvernote – the iPhone app helped me ‘get’ what Evernote could be used for. It allows me to take photos, record snatches of audio or type notes all of which get synced to the EndEvernote desktop app where they can then be exported and used for stuff. I can see myself ditching my Moleskeine for this soon.
  • Google – makes search quicker and easier, and also allows access to other apps, even allowing me to use my Google Apps stuff.
  • Super Monkey Ball – brilliant for quick games here and there, even though I am HOPELESS at it

What other great apps are there I should be using?

The real value of Flickr

Having an iPhone has really liberated me in term of the way that I use Flickr. This would be true of any phone with decent internet connectivity, and indeed there are plenty of handsets out there with better camera functionality than the iPhone. But the ability to easily take a picture and upload it to Flickr via email in a matter of seconds is fantastic – like this, which I took in Chipping Norton yesterday:

Church at chipping norton

This has led me to have a bit of a wonder about Flickr and where the value of it lies. One thing Flickr does brilliantly is to create a community of photographers, from amateurs through to seasoned professionals, who discuss one another’s photos and chat about lenses, resolutions and whatnot.

But Flickr has another community too – people out on the streets with cameraphones, who don’t really care about the angles of the shots they are taking, wh just want to capture the moment and share it online. Such users can easily find themselves at the forefront of important events, thrust into the role of citizen journalist.

These two communities exist side-by-side rather well, despite the fact that they are using the same service for quite different purposes. Which is more important to Flickr, I wonder – and which to society?

Load more posts!