Voices

Market down (but the world will not end, just a recession). Debate up (Obama ‘won‘ among uncommitted voters 53% to 22% with 25% calling it a tie). And could we please think about something else for just one day?

GOLD MAIL

As explained here, it’s email that arrives with your voice and exhibits of your choosing. So the recipient, opening it, might hear you say, ‘Hey, guys, look at this new logo!’ and see it as you’re saying that. Then hear you say, ‘Let me know what you think of it – and, by the way, while I have you, here’s the new budget.’ At which point, they see the budget. At $10 a month, some may find it a useful tool.

VOICETHREAD.COM

This one is free and lets a bunch of friends or family members or colleagues – or anyone else (all the students in the class you teach? the whole world?) – comment on the same set of photos, or a spreadsheet, or anything else. It stays on the web and builds as people keep adding comments – although you, as the ‘owner’ of the voice thread you started, can ‘moderate’ the comments, screening them for good taste or accuracy before allowing them to be seen by others.

To quote from the Frequently Asked Questions:

Every VoiceThread begins its life as private as a piece of paper inside a safe, completely secure. You must choose whom you wish to share it with – either 1 person or 10 people or the whole world. You can choose to show a VoiceThread to the whole world in a couple of different ways. It can be public, but not allow any new comments, or you can make it public, and allow new comments. You can also choose to turn on comment moderation, which means that all new comments are only visible to you and the person who made them, until you specifically choose to ‘show’ them. You can also choose whether you want a public VoiceThread listed in our browse section (the default is ‘Yes’), but if you choose ‘No’ then only people with the exact URL will see it.

☞ Build a family photo album that comes to life with voices of the family . . . and continues to grow even as toddlers grow up to leave comments and great-great grandparents, having left them, pass on.

If you make a thread you want to share with the group – centered around a kick-ass stock chart perhaps? your golden retriever? – me-mail me.

(If you don’t have a microphone handy, just enter your phone number and half a second later your phone rings with instructions for leaving a comment. How cool is that?)