Talk It Up!

Trying Whrrl for #fairmont5th Seattle Tweetup

Having discovered the story- and photo-sharing site and iPhone app Whrrl at BlogHer, I was eager to give it a try for the next tweetup, which happened to be the #fairmont5th mashup. The Tweetup was to promote the Fifth Avenue Theater, now premiering a new musical set in the 50s, Catch Me If You Can, which is reportedly lush with costumes and catchy musical tunes. And it was hosted by the lovely Fairmont Hotel, which offered room and suite tours as well as a generous prize of a stay at the classic hotel.

Before the event, I went to the site to create the #fairmont5th story and invited about half of the event's guests to participate. Currently, guests must be added individually, which is rather time-consuming for an event like this, with 80 RSVPs. Note: could we combine somehow with EventBrite or the event's TwitVite to simply import the guest list?

However, once I arrived at the event and logged in to the nifty Whrrl iPhone app, my created story didn't appear anywhere on the app, so I had to create a new one, with no guests. And I quickly discovered that photos and captions posted via Whrrl didn't cross-post to Twitter. So let me get this straight: I have to Tweet a photo and then send it to the Whrrl story separately? That's too much work for this Gen Xer with a bent towards efficiency. I'd much prefer that Whrrl simply be able to import all the Tweets and photos that I've tagged with the event hashtag automatically. Now THAT would be useful!

To me, the biggest benefit of Whrrl is the lovely, interactive slideshow presentation after the event. Guests can comment on the photos or add their own photos and comments to the stream and then post the slideshow to their own blogs as well. And the presentation is just lovely:

Testing AudioBoo

AudioBoo is one of the newer tools in the social media storm of late, and some podfaders have gravitated towards it as an easy, on-the-go alternative to the sometimes labor-intensive audio podcast.

Thanks to the likes of Neville Hobson over at For Immediate Release podcast, who has been raving about AudioBoo's ease of use, I downloaded the iPhone app and gave it a try.

What is AudioBoo?
AudioBoo is basically Seesmic for audio recordings, with the added benefit of recording directly from the iPhone via the iPhone app. To get started, download the free app from the App store. The interface is three-button, no-nonsense.

 

Push Record to record an audio message. This could be a Twitter-like comment or something longer, like an interview, with two people speaking into the application. After reviewing your Boo, just hit upload to post the message, and message posts to the public timeline at AudioBoo.fm.

The site works like most other social networking sites, with a public timeline so you can discover friends with similar interests, the ability to tag posts for more discoverability and the ability to friend and follow others.

Another nice added feature is the ability to create different account and link each one to the iPhone app--great for community managers like myself who might want to post from different accounts on behalf of clients.

The big benefit of AudioBoo is its ease of use, hands-down. If you've discovered that you don't have time to orchestrate a full-on podcast but still want to connect orally with friends, fans and followers, AudioBoo can basically act as an easy, three-button, instant podcast. At the next event, try hitting Record to capture an interview with a speaker or attendee immediately after a session and posting right away.

It's the instantaneous nature of Twitter combined with the more personal connectivity of audio via the human voice. This could be powerful. And yes, it's now integrated with Twitter so that you can tweet your Boos, so no worries about having to manage two micromedia platforms simultaneously. For a more detailed explanation, this video is excellent:

Have you tried AudioBoo? What do you think? More importantly, how do you anticipate using it?