If you want to record audio and post your recording to the web, all without anything other than your iPhone or a web browser, it’s never been easier to do that than now.
You’re spoiled for choice with a growing number of web services and iPhone apps, all (currently) free.
In March, I discovered Audioboo, a free service that gives you the ability to record up to five minutes of audio on your iPhone and publish the recording to your Audioboo account on the web, complete with descriptive text, tags and your geo-location data if you choose to include that.
At about the same time, I found out about ipadio, a phone-based system that offers a broader and deeper range of audio services including recording audio from any telephone. Nemisys, the UK company behind ipadio, released a new ipadio for iPhone app last week, a free app which, from my user perspective, broadly does the same as Audioboo. (I’ll be posting a comparative review of Audioboo and ipadio soon.)
Apps like this focused on the phone – specifically, the iPhone – make it as easy as you can imagine to record and share audio content on the web. No microphone, software nor computer, just the iPhone. It couldn’t be simpler.
Well, it looks like it just got even simpler thanks to a tool like Chir.ps, a web- and iPhone-based service and app that lets you speak, record and publish with a few clicks at the website or screen taps on the iPhone.
The web service is simplicity itself, making use of a microphone you have connected to your computer or a built-in one to record via the service’s Flash-based interface.
It’s equally simple on the iPhone as Chir.ps hasn’t developed its own app but instead makes use of the Voice Memos recording app that comes with Apple’s version 3.0 operating system for the iPhone.
Voice Memos lets you record and share audio via email or MMS. With Chir.ps, you record and email your recording to Chir.ps which publishes it in your account on the website.
How simple is that?
Each of these apps has its strengths and weaknesses (in my experience, lots of strengths and very few weaknesses) so you use what you judge to be the best app for the job at hand.
Each of them offers a number of ‘social’ elements (including embed codes, followers, text commenting, marking as favourites, etc) although Chir.ps is quite literally embedded with Twitter, linking your Twitter account when you do your first recording.
You’re already seeing some imaginative uses of such tools, especially Audioboo and ipadio on the iPhone as entry points into audio blogging/podcasting but without the infrastructure.
These aren’t the only audio-recording apps and services out there, either. There’s TweetMic, for instance, which I’ve been experimenting with as well. Also stand-alone recording apps for the iPhone such as Griffin iTalk.
It’s never been easier to get your voice heard on the net.
