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AudioBoo aims to become YouTube or Twitter of the spoken word
UK sound-sharing website AudioBoo, also available on iPhone, attracts 1m page views in first three months
It has captured the birth of a new baby, clashes at the G20 protests, London marathon runners gasping for breath, cheery observations from Stephen Fry and bad jokes from Tony Blackburn. Less than three months since its launch, the sound-sharing website AudioBoo, is well on the way to becoming the YouTube of the spoken word.
Its success has prompted media companies to incorporate it into coverage of this summer's festivals and sporting events. ITV's coverage of the FA Cup later this month, for example, will hear fans' views of the game and armchair commentaries via AudioBoo on their mobile phones. And the British Library wants to use it to capture dialects, accents, oral histories and neighbourhood soundscapes.
"It's not only a recording device, it's also a publishing device and that's its great appeal," said Richard Ranft, the head of the library's sound archive. "It has fantastic potential – it allows people to easily capture an event as it happens. All you need is your phone, you don't have to use recording equipment."
AudioBoo, which was partly funded by Channel 4, was launched in March as a website and free iPhone application, although it can now be used on other mobiles and landlines. It allows users to make "boos" – digital recordings – up to five minutes long. At the press of button, they can then be published online as a mini-podcast. The AudioBoo website allows users to comment on the recordings, share them on other sites, and follow other users.
Its take-up has been encouraged by celebrities and the media's use of boos at news events, including the Guardian's coverage of the G20 protests.
Stephen Fry's endorsement to his 450,000 followers on Twitter also helped. The broadcaster and gadget enthusiast has recorded boos, complete with audience participation, while hosting TV show QI and at the recording of the new series of the Radio 4 programme I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue. At one point Fry's first boo was being listened to 46 times a second.
Mark Rock, the head of a small team who devised AudioBoo in an office beside a railway line in south London, points to a graph that tracks growth over the last three months. "That's the G20 spike, that's the Stephen Fry spike, that's the Tony Blackburn spikette, and that's Chris Moyles," he said.
Blackburn's transatlantic DJ's patter is currently one of the prolific voices on Audioboo. "It's reinvented him," said Rock. "He keeps ringing me up and now he wants to do radio phone-ins on AudioBoo." There have even been tribute boos to Blackburn.
It was when Chris Moyles starting using the service and playing Blackburn's boos on his Radio 1 breakfast show earlier this month that it began to go mainstream.
In the last week alone more 66 hours of material were uploaded – almost a fifth of its total since March.
This week the website is expected to top more than 1m page views since it launched and 30,000 downloads to mobiles, making it one of the most successful UK-made iPhone applications.
Most of the users are in the UK, but a random 24-hour period last week illustrates how AudioBoo is being used and how it's spreading. Recordings included: a cat purring in Brooklyn; office banter in Kosovo; 10-pin bowling in Cardiff; square dancing in Berlin; a steam train in Australia; two lads from Yorkshire talking on helium; clarinet practising in Ayrshire; the sound of the Dutch coast; the dawn chorus in Sefton; doing the laundry in Bangkok; a bootleg clip of a concert in Brighton; and swearing from a traffic jam on the M6.
James Cridland, head of future media technology at the BBC, says such content is a goldmine for radio stations. "Letting your listeners generate great audio will really transform your radio station – far more than texts or emails ever will," he said.
AudioBoo has been talked about as next thing in social networking. Some fear it will simply be a spoken version of banal Twitter updates. Or worse – boos on the lavatory are disturbingly frequent.
"The rubbish makes you appreciate the good ones," said Rock.
Cridland said it would not compete with Twitter or radio. "It's probably going to be more niche than that – it's primarily audio so it's hard to play around with while you're at work. But it brings back the power of the spoken voice."
Ranft agrees. "I'm pleased people are talking about in terms of it reinventing radio. It's difficult to convey emotions in text, but it comes across immediately in the voice," he said.
He is talking to Rock about setting up AudioBoo channels for the library's sound archive to help members of the public build up its research collection. Schoolchildren could get involved to record how telltale words such as bath are pronounced in their area, Ranft says.
"It takes recording out of the realm of the specialist," he said.
Rock imagines publishing daily boos from the library's archive. "If a recording of Queen Victoria popped up I'd listen to it, just as I listened to Tony Blackburn's first audioboo."
Matthew Weaver
Tuesday 26 May 2009 09.59 BST
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2009
UK sound-sharing website AudioBoo, also available on iPhone, attracts 1m page views in first three months
It has captured the birth of a new baby, clashes at the G20 protests, London marathon runners gasping for breath, cheery observations from Stephen Fry and bad jokes from Tony Blackburn. Less than three months since its launch, the sound-sharing website AudioBoo, is well on the way to becoming the YouTube of the spoken word.
Its success has prompted media companies to incorporate it into coverage of this summer's festivals and sporting events. ITV's coverage of the FA Cup later this month, for example, will hear fans' views of the game and armchair commentaries via AudioBoo on their mobile phones. And the British Library wants to use it to capture dialects, accents, oral histories and neighbourhood soundscapes.
"It's not only a recording device, it's also a publishing device and that's its great appeal," said Richard Ranft, the head of the library's sound archive. "It has fantastic potential – it allows people to easily capture an event as it happens. All you need is your phone, you don't have to use recording equipment."
AudioBoo, which was partly funded by Channel 4, was launched in March as a website and free iPhone application, although it can now be used on other mobiles and landlines. It allows users to make "boos" – digital recordings – up to five minutes long. At the press of button, they can then be published online as a mini-podcast. The AudioBoo website allows users to comment on the recordings, share them on other sites, and follow other users.
Its take-up has been encouraged by celebrities and the media's use of boos at news events, including the Guardian's coverage of the G20 protests.
Stephen Fry's endorsement to his 450,000 followers on Twitter also helped. The broadcaster and gadget enthusiast has recorded boos, complete with audience participation, while hosting TV show QI and at the recording of the new series of the Radio 4 programme I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue. At one point Fry's first boo was being listened to 46 times a second.
Mark Rock, the head of a small team who devised AudioBoo in an office beside a railway line in south London, points to a graph that tracks growth over the last three months. "That's the G20 spike, that's the Stephen Fry spike, that's the Tony Blackburn spikette, and that's Chris Moyles," he said.
Blackburn's transatlantic DJ's patter is currently one of the prolific voices on Audioboo. "It's reinvented him," said Rock. "He keeps ringing me up and now he wants to do radio phone-ins on AudioBoo." There have even been tribute boos to Blackburn.
It was when Chris Moyles starting using the service and playing Blackburn's boos on his Radio 1 breakfast show earlier this month that it began to go mainstream.
In the last week alone more 66 hours of material were uploaded – almost a fifth of its total since March.
This week the website is expected to top more than 1m page views since it launched and 30,000 downloads to mobiles, making it one of the most successful UK-made iPhone applications.
Most of the users are in the UK, but a random 24-hour period last week illustrates how AudioBoo is being used and how it's spreading. Recordings included: a cat purring in Brooklyn; office banter in Kosovo; 10-pin bowling in Cardiff; square dancing in Berlin; a steam train in Australia; two lads from Yorkshire talking on helium; clarinet practising in Ayrshire; the sound of the Dutch coast; the dawn chorus in Sefton; doing the laundry in Bangkok; a bootleg clip of a concert in Brighton; and swearing from a traffic jam on the M6.
James Cridland, head of future media technology at the BBC, says such content is a goldmine for radio stations. "Letting your listeners generate great audio will really transform your radio station – far more than texts or emails ever will," he said.
AudioBoo has been talked about as next thing in social networking. Some fear it will simply be a spoken version of banal Twitter updates. Or worse – boos on the lavatory are disturbingly frequent.
"The rubbish makes you appreciate the good ones," said Rock.
Cridland said it would not compete with Twitter or radio. "It's probably going to be more niche than that – it's primarily audio so it's hard to play around with while you're at work. But it brings back the power of the spoken voice."
Ranft agrees. "I'm pleased people are talking about in terms of it reinventing radio. It's difficult to convey emotions in text, but it comes across immediately in the voice," he said.
He is talking to Rock about setting up AudioBoo channels for the library's sound archive to help members of the public build up its research collection. Schoolchildren could get involved to record how telltale words such as bath are pronounced in their area, Ranft says.
"It takes recording out of the realm of the specialist," he said.
Rock imagines publishing daily boos from the library's archive. "If a recording of Queen Victoria popped up I'd listen to it, just as I listened to Tony Blackburn's first audioboo."
Matthew Weaver
Tuesday 26 May 2009 09.59 BST
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2009
