Phlogs are nice (and sometimes useful) things that ipadio lets you create. And now, thanks to a really powerful, free app, you can phlog from your iPhone with ease.
Phlogs are recordings that you can easily make from any phone and instantly broadcast on the Internet. You just sign up for a free account, get your unique pin number, dial a local number, enter your pin, and start talking. Alternatively you may have a pre-recorded MP3 file that you want to upload.
Phlogs already have a variety of uses and new ones are regularly being discovered. You can just phlog your thoughts and use ipadio like an audio blog or diary. You can use phlogs for planned or spontaneous interviews of people - and conference calling allows you to have several people in on the recording and removes distance barriers. You can publish details of your travels (especially useful when you don’t have access to a computer). You can use ipadio like radio and give live reports of events. And you can always use it to give restaurant or theatre reviews. Although most people will want their phlogs to be public, because you can restrict who has access to them, businesses, charities, and other organisations can use phlogs like a 24/7 voicemail service to broadcast information updates.
Enter the free ipadio app for the iPhone. I have to declare two things. First, I really like this app. Secondly, the company aren’t paying me to say that - honest.
Once the app is downloaded and installed on your iPhone you have a choice of recording in two ways. You can either make a live phonecast by dialing a local number, entering your pin, and speaking, or you can record something and upload it later. The latter option allows you to pause and resume the recording several times before publishing. I really like this feature as I found that trying to speak without a script for a reasonably long time was quite difficult. Pause and resume allowed time to engage brain before opening mouth. You can compose over time.
The other big attraction of this app is that, unlike so many others, it isn’t dependent on a good Internet connection. You can broadcast live (with a few seconds delay) even where you can’t get a 3G/wireless connection. Provided you can get a phone signal, you can phlog.
After the recording has been made you can add several other pieces of information. A title, a brief description, and tags that will help people find your phlogs via search engines. These can be typed into the iPhone and uploaded. However, if you are in a hurry, the app will add that information for you. The first 60 seconds of your recording are sent to SpinVox which will convert your voice into text and have a stab at coming up with a title and tags (if you haven’t already provided your own), as well as publishing the first 60 seconds in text below your phlog on the Internet. Although not perfect, this text is good, and one interesting side effect is that it seems to boost your search engine ranking. Any title and tag data which is automatically added can be easily edited later.
The app also gives you the option of adding two other pieces of information with your phlog. You can upload up to 4 photos with each phlog, and you can also elect to use the iPhone’s GPS system to upload your precise location at the time of the broadcast.
Once your phlogs are recorded, if you want, ipadio will easily link them to any of your accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Wordpress, Posterous, Blogger, Live Spaces, LiveJournal (more to follow).
On the playback side the latest phlogs are listed chronologically and you can trawl through to find something to interest you, or just re-listen to your own exciting phlogs. In some ways this part seemed the weakest side of the app. I have three recommendations for inclusion in future updates. First, it would be useful to be able to search for phlogs by topic. Secondly it would be good to be able to see a list of the broadcasters that you have elected to follow. Thirdly, it would be useful to be able to pause the playback. (Somebody always interrupts you while you are listening and it is annoying to have to go back to the beginning and start again.)
This really is a powerful, flexible iPhone app that has both fun and serious uses.
I have not tried phlogging at all. I did once listen to one that you did but because my house is always noisy and my hearing is not fantastic I found I had to concentrate rather too much. I am a reader really. When I have the radio on, I only listen to the music, rarely to any of the spoken stuff. I just can’t seem to focus in on it other than when I am driving and can turn it up really loud.
But I can see that this is a useful application and I may give it a try at some point. I am not sure I could bear to listen to my own voice though. But I suppose it might be nice to record the children or something like that.
I would be interested to know how many people listen to phlogs. I suppose they would be a useful way for me to work through my Google Reader list on a long car journey.
Reluctant Blogger
Apart from the fun element and possible business usage, I think there are two occasions where phlogs might come into their own:
1) When you want to blog or tweet but haven’t got access to a computer or smartphone, but could make a phone call.
2) When you are too tired to type or where your keyboard would make typing very tiresome.
In about 3 million years time when speech recognition software is really, really accurate, a lot more people will be using phlogs to tweet and blog (I suspect).
Yes, the first of those I can see might apply. But if I were too tired to type (something I find very easy and can almost do in my sleep) I would certainly be too incoherent to speak!!
We’ll review it all in 3 million years then, shall we? I’ll put a note in my diary!!
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