About a year ago, I set up a blog for my family. I thought it would be a great way for all of us to keep in touch with each other. We could post our latest news, upload photos, share videos and the rest. I was really excited, until I realized that I was the only one who was making any entries. Try as I might, I couldn't get anyone else onto the computer. I had to call mom and dad every time I posted, and even then there was a lag of time before they finally read what I had to say.
Why? My parents, bless their hearts, are seriously pre-internet. In fact, they're seriously pre-computer. My mother remembers the day when typewriters had two carriages: one for upper case and one for lower case. My dad served in WWII, as a Navy bombadier. In those days, you used a phone - if you had one. Otherwise, you walked over to your friend's house and caught up over tea on the front porch.
Alas, those days are long gone. Americans are scattered around the country now. We shop in supermarkets and malls instead of the corner store where the owners knew every customer. That may still be the case in some instances, but I'll bet the corner store owner's kids are in a different city these days. My parents still live in a little time warp, blissfully ignorant of the internet, despite my many attempts to introduce them to it. For one thing, my mom's vision just isn't what it used to be. She has difficulty seeing the screen. My dad will occasionally turn on the computer, although most of the time it stays off and forgotten. It's just not part of their thinking, and who can blame them? I still can't figure out how to program a VCR and mostly ignore it unless I'm playing a video.
So, what's a far-away and internet-loving daughter to do? Simple: find a way of enabling internet access without actually using a computer. And, yes, it's possible! Not only that, it's also mostly free, like so many things on the web these days.
As they say, necessity is the mother of invention. Actually, this little exploration began with a quest to find audio access for my blind friends. They have screen readers, or magnifiers, of course, but I thought it would be a lot easier for them to hear posts rather than read them (well, I was wrong, but that's for another blog posting). I searched for ways of leaving voice messages via email and on blogs. I didn't have a microphone at the time, but I soon discovered ways of leaving voices messages via my telephone. That's right - a telephone! The service would take my voice message and put it on an audio player. It would then send it as an email or post it to a blog of my choosing. Since I'm pretty internet-savvy, I could set this up from my end and just have them call a number, enter a pass code, talk and then hang up.
I've since become a great fan of voice posting. I don't need an internet connection to speak my mind, and neither do my friends or family. I just dial and talk. The service provider takes care of the rest, and all for free (with one exception). It doesn't get much better than that.
Of course, it's nice to read posts and see pictures as well, but if that's not a viable option, then a voice posting might be a better way to go. An entry of this type also introduces your audience to the sound of your voice. I think that's a nice way of personalizing an otherwise impersonal medium, don't you agree?
Let me talk about a few of the voice blogging/emailing options I've been able to find. They're all quite simple to set up and use, although it might take a few tries to get it right:
1. Gabcast. This was the very first service I was able to find on the internet. It's a telephone voice messaging system, designed for blogs and for email. You can also leave a message right on the Gabcast website and have your friends find you there. Gabcast is free, at least for the base configuration. A paid option gives you a bit more privacy. Gabcast also lets you send voice emails, which none of these other options so. This service can be found at www.gabcast.com.
2. Hipcast. Hipcast costs a bit of money, not much, and for the bucks you get some really nice formatting options. You can call in your message by phone or via a microphone which is built right into the site (cool, huh?). If you're really feeling ambitious, you can also upload videos to Hipcast and automatically post them to your blog. You can find hipcast at: www.hipcast.com.
3. Live Journal Voice Posting. This is probably the easiest way to go, since you have a grand total of one option: call in a posting and it will automatically be posted to your Live Journal blog. It will be a bit more confusing to set up, but once you're there you have absolutely nothing else to do except enter a PIN number. Of course, you're stuck with Live Journal, but that's okay. By the way, Live Journal is a blogging service and the one I set up for my parents. Visit Live Journal for more information about this option. Like I said, it's a bit more complicated at the beginning, but once you're set up you're home free. Live Journal, like most blogs, is free although it does have paid options as well.
4. Utterz. This service is kind of new, and incorporates voice along with photos. You don't need the photos, though. You can just call the number and it'll post an audio message to your blog. Their address is (you guessed it) www.utterz.com.
Try these out on your parents, or have a more knowledgeable friend set something up for you. No computer necessary. Just talk! Check out some examples below:
Showing posts with label audio blog. Show all posts
Showing posts with label audio blog. Show all posts
Monday, October 22, 2007
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Here We Go A'Blogging
I'm a blogging junkie. I have accounts on almost all of the major blogging services: WordPress, Blogger, Vox, Live Journal, Xanga, Podbean, Podcastpeople and TypePad. Some I use regularly, others have yet to see more than the light of day. It depends on the need, my mood and - in some cases - on the others in my blog "neighborhood." Most of these services are either free (at least in their basic form) or extremely inexpensive.
As far as I'm concerned, bogging is the poster child of Web 2.0. For those not in the know, Web 2.0 is a catch-all phrase describing the "new," interactive generation of internet use. If you've heard of YouTube, Wikipedia or MySpace, for example, you're already familiar with the concept. You can interact with others in a number of ways and they can interact with you. You can post your videos or audios online where others can see and/or hear it. They can rate your posts and send you theirs. You can tell others as little or as much as you'd like and they can do the same. It brings the concept of "community" to an entirely new level (although not always a healthy or safe one).
I use blogs primarily for my public and private writing projects. I can collaborate with other writers. Everything is on one place in a blog. It's there forever (or for as long as you want it there) and your chosen group of readers or writers can access it and add to it.
Most of my fiction writing projects are on WordPress, which allows me to have multiple authors and multiple blogs on my one account. Since we've already got outlines for seven novels, I can add additional blogs as needed to accommodate them. I also have a private blog on WordPress, along with some humorous ones that are open to the public.
On the other hand, I use Blogger for my family blogs. I love this type of blogging and have a blog for my immediate family in Buffalo, NY (I'm in Boston, MA) and for my husband's family as well. These are invitation-only blogs, to protect privacy.
Why did I choose WordPress for one and Blogger for the other? Chance, mostly, as well as features. Both WordPress as well as Blogger allow me to create more than one blog per account and also to have multiple blog authors. That was my main criteria.
I also have some "neighborhood" type blogs. These are a bit more social in nature, akin to some of the social networking sites like MySpace. In this case, however, the activity is centered on the blog postings. From there you can "friend" others (i.e., add them to your friends lists), join groups and in general create a little community of like-minded users. It's one more way of getting to know people around this little world of ours. I have accounts on Live Journal, Xanga and on Vox for these purposes. Go ahead: click on the links. You're welcome to have a look!
At some point in the near future I'll be writing about audio and video blogging as well. For now, here's an introduction to the subject:
Gabcast! Blog Updates #1
As far as I'm concerned, bogging is the poster child of Web 2.0. For those not in the know, Web 2.0 is a catch-all phrase describing the "new," interactive generation of internet use. If you've heard of YouTube, Wikipedia or MySpace, for example, you're already familiar with the concept. You can interact with others in a number of ways and they can interact with you. You can post your videos or audios online where others can see and/or hear it. They can rate your posts and send you theirs. You can tell others as little or as much as you'd like and they can do the same. It brings the concept of "community" to an entirely new level (although not always a healthy or safe one).
I use blogs primarily for my public and private writing projects. I can collaborate with other writers. Everything is on one place in a blog. It's there forever (or for as long as you want it there) and your chosen group of readers or writers can access it and add to it.
Most of my fiction writing projects are on WordPress, which allows me to have multiple authors and multiple blogs on my one account. Since we've already got outlines for seven novels, I can add additional blogs as needed to accommodate them. I also have a private blog on WordPress, along with some humorous ones that are open to the public.
On the other hand, I use Blogger for my family blogs. I love this type of blogging and have a blog for my immediate family in Buffalo, NY (I'm in Boston, MA) and for my husband's family as well. These are invitation-only blogs, to protect privacy.
Why did I choose WordPress for one and Blogger for the other? Chance, mostly, as well as features. Both WordPress as well as Blogger allow me to create more than one blog per account and also to have multiple blog authors. That was my main criteria.
I also have some "neighborhood" type blogs. These are a bit more social in nature, akin to some of the social networking sites like MySpace. In this case, however, the activity is centered on the blog postings. From there you can "friend" others (i.e., add them to your friends lists), join groups and in general create a little community of like-minded users. It's one more way of getting to know people around this little world of ours. I have accounts on Live Journal, Xanga and on Vox for these purposes. Go ahead: click on the links. You're welcome to have a look!
At some point in the near future I'll be writing about audio and video blogging as well. For now, here's an introduction to the subject:
Gabcast! Blog Updates #1
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Get a (Virtual) Life
About a year ago I joined a Yahoo! user group, for a popular television show. I was unhappy with the direction the series was taking and was relieved to find a community of others who felt the same way. I didn't join it to promote my business, or to develop business relationships. I joined it because I needed an outlet for my frustration.
As time went by I became more and more involved with the group. It was a place to vent and to laugh. I was in regular touch with a community of people - mostly women - and felt myself developing relationships with them. I didn't know any of them in person. I didn't know who they were, where they lived, what they looked or sounded like. In some cases I didn't even know their real names. All I knew was that I really looking forward to reading the posts and to writing them.
There were a lot of "fan fiction" writers in the group. I've never been particularly interested in this genre, but took the occasional look at it before returning to the ongoing board discussions. As time went by, I came to recognize the groups's leaders: people who posted regularly and to whom people turned for advice. One person in particular met this criteria. She was on the board all the time and seemed to have an "in" at the network on which the show aired. She wrote a great deal of fan fiction and, I later discovered, had a wicked funny bone.
This person also had a blog - weblog, that is - along with a few others. At some point along the way I started doing something I never thought I'd do again - write fiction. In my case, since I also have a wicked funny bone, I wrote a satire. I thought it was cute, so I posted it to the "Files" section of the site, where other writers had also posted.
The response was immediate. They loved it. They howled with laughter. "Margy, Margy, Margy!" wrote one, the same de facto "leader" of the group mentioned above. "Clap, clap, clap!" Another wrote "OMG...that was hilarious!" It met a need. I found a humorous way of making the television show do what I wanted it to do. Everybody who read it came away with the same laughter and relief.
And, I got posted to someone else's blog. Other people read it. Other people liked it.
A few weeks later, our groups's fearless leader posted a series of stories she'd written. They were imaginary interviews with each of the characters on the television show. I remember reading them and laughing so hard I couldn't breathe. I sat in front of my computer screen and roared, with tears rolling down my eyes.
I posted her stories to my blog.
Do you catch where I'm going here? I had developed a series of relationships, not at all business related (or so I thought at the time), with people I'd never met in person. We were like a little family. We looked out for each other. We held each others' hands. We made each other laugh.
A few months later I found out the "fearless leader" of our group was blind. She'd never mentioned it and in one post casually said at some point her remaining vision would go. Then, "lights out."
The news hit me like a punch in the stomach. I had no idea. I had developed a fondness for her, as one funny writer to another, albeit in completely different genres. At some point, last October, she posted a link to a birthday card she'd received from a friend in Britain. I decided to send her a birthday wish of my own, with a little ditty I made up. She posted back, roaring with laughter and throwing out something funny of her own. We did that all day. By the end of it I was practically on the floor and so was she. From that point on, we were pals.
But, she was blind - or well on the way. I wondered if there were any way to set things up so she hear my posts and emails rather than see them. I love tinkering with computers and I spent an incredibly long time finding information about audio blogging. I tested out a variety of options, some of which worked for her and some of which didn't. In my search for a "play" button that was big enough for her to see I discovered YouTube, even though that's a video service. I set up a blog for her with her favorite fan videos and jokes. And, as time went by, she told me more and more about her life. It wasn't all funny. Sometimes she was fine. Sometimes she found the isolation and frustration imposed by her blindness to be more than she could bear. I began to know the whole person, someone I'd never formally "met."
I'm closer to her than I am to a lot of people I see all the time. We email or video chat every day. We laugh and cry together. I "know" her friends and she "knows" mine. I started writing mystery fiction. One of the characters - you guessed it - is blind, and very funny - most of the time.
None of this would have happened without that Yahoo! group. I now know about audio and video blogging on different platforms because of my quest to make her online experience easier. I also developed an interested in adaptive (special needs) software for blind/low vision users. I discovered Google's online suite of applications while trying to find a way we could work on the stories collaboratively. I ended up using a blog instead, but later set up a second business using the same Google software I'd earlier discovered.
She's also a customer, by the way. I sent her a Christmas present last December: an assortment of foods from my business. She loved a German cake so much she bought out my remaining stocks. She had me send cakes to her friends and her family. She has already let me know that I'd better order more this Christmas! Granted, she didn't buy the cakes just because she was my friend. She bought them because she liked them. But - she wouldn't have been my customer if she wasn't my friend first. I never would have thought to send her that gift.
From an unknown poster to a customer, a writing collaborator and one of my best friends. That's virtual networking for you. It happens on its own, when you give enough of yourself for others to grab onto. Relationships these days have gone beyond the physical realm. Try it for yourself and see how this works. I never would have expected it.
By the way, my blind friend and I will be meeting each other for the first time in person this October!
As time went by I became more and more involved with the group. It was a place to vent and to laugh. I was in regular touch with a community of people - mostly women - and felt myself developing relationships with them. I didn't know any of them in person. I didn't know who they were, where they lived, what they looked or sounded like. In some cases I didn't even know their real names. All I knew was that I really looking forward to reading the posts and to writing them.
There were a lot of "fan fiction" writers in the group. I've never been particularly interested in this genre, but took the occasional look at it before returning to the ongoing board discussions. As time went by, I came to recognize the groups's leaders: people who posted regularly and to whom people turned for advice. One person in particular met this criteria. She was on the board all the time and seemed to have an "in" at the network on which the show aired. She wrote a great deal of fan fiction and, I later discovered, had a wicked funny bone.
This person also had a blog - weblog, that is - along with a few others. At some point along the way I started doing something I never thought I'd do again - write fiction. In my case, since I also have a wicked funny bone, I wrote a satire. I thought it was cute, so I posted it to the "Files" section of the site, where other writers had also posted.
The response was immediate. They loved it. They howled with laughter. "Margy, Margy, Margy!" wrote one, the same de facto "leader" of the group mentioned above. "Clap, clap, clap!" Another wrote "OMG...that was hilarious!" It met a need. I found a humorous way of making the television show do what I wanted it to do. Everybody who read it came away with the same laughter and relief.
And, I got posted to someone else's blog. Other people read it. Other people liked it.
A few weeks later, our groups's fearless leader posted a series of stories she'd written. They were imaginary interviews with each of the characters on the television show. I remember reading them and laughing so hard I couldn't breathe. I sat in front of my computer screen and roared, with tears rolling down my eyes.
I posted her stories to my blog.
Do you catch where I'm going here? I had developed a series of relationships, not at all business related (or so I thought at the time), with people I'd never met in person. We were like a little family. We looked out for each other. We held each others' hands. We made each other laugh.
A few months later I found out the "fearless leader" of our group was blind. She'd never mentioned it and in one post casually said at some point her remaining vision would go. Then, "lights out."
The news hit me like a punch in the stomach. I had no idea. I had developed a fondness for her, as one funny writer to another, albeit in completely different genres. At some point, last October, she posted a link to a birthday card she'd received from a friend in Britain. I decided to send her a birthday wish of my own, with a little ditty I made up. She posted back, roaring with laughter and throwing out something funny of her own. We did that all day. By the end of it I was practically on the floor and so was she. From that point on, we were pals.
But, she was blind - or well on the way. I wondered if there were any way to set things up so she hear my posts and emails rather than see them. I love tinkering with computers and I spent an incredibly long time finding information about audio blogging. I tested out a variety of options, some of which worked for her and some of which didn't. In my search for a "play" button that was big enough for her to see I discovered YouTube, even though that's a video service. I set up a blog for her with her favorite fan videos and jokes. And, as time went by, she told me more and more about her life. It wasn't all funny. Sometimes she was fine. Sometimes she found the isolation and frustration imposed by her blindness to be more than she could bear. I began to know the whole person, someone I'd never formally "met."
I'm closer to her than I am to a lot of people I see all the time. We email or video chat every day. We laugh and cry together. I "know" her friends and she "knows" mine. I started writing mystery fiction. One of the characters - you guessed it - is blind, and very funny - most of the time.
None of this would have happened without that Yahoo! group. I now know about audio and video blogging on different platforms because of my quest to make her online experience easier. I also developed an interested in adaptive (special needs) software for blind/low vision users. I discovered Google's online suite of applications while trying to find a way we could work on the stories collaboratively. I ended up using a blog instead, but later set up a second business using the same Google software I'd earlier discovered.
She's also a customer, by the way. I sent her a Christmas present last December: an assortment of foods from my business. She loved a German cake so much she bought out my remaining stocks. She had me send cakes to her friends and her family. She has already let me know that I'd better order more this Christmas! Granted, she didn't buy the cakes just because she was my friend. She bought them because she liked them. But - she wouldn't have been my customer if she wasn't my friend first. I never would have thought to send her that gift.
From an unknown poster to a customer, a writing collaborator and one of my best friends. That's virtual networking for you. It happens on its own, when you give enough of yourself for others to grab onto. Relationships these days have gone beyond the physical realm. Try it for yourself and see how this works. I never would have expected it.
By the way, my blind friend and I will be meeting each other for the first time in person this October!
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