VnoTed

VnoTed gives you the ability to create location-based voice notes, and publish them to a real-time audio stream. You can configure the notes to go out to Twitter, Facebook, and Friendfeed. Here's how your note will look in FriendFeed. It comes with a pushpin on a Google Map, showing your position, and a widget to play back the audio:

You create a voice note using your cell phone, and within a second or two, it's pushed out to the web.

While it's definitely an advantage to use a smart phone such as an iPhone or Blackberry, you can still use VnoTed on a basic cellphone. This is because VnoTed capitalizes on the idea of a two-phase approach to leaving a voice note. Phase 1 is "checking in", and Phase 2 is leaving the note. Phones will differentiate themselves as to how they handle Phase 1, but there's always a way to let VnoTed know where you are, even if it's by referring to a "placemark" or typing in a zip code.

VnoTed uses Brightkite a separate free service, to store and retrieve your geographical data. That's why signing up for Brightkite is a prerequesite for VnoTed.

Get Started using VnoTed

1. Sign up for Brightkite, being sure to provide a cellnumber in your Brightkite settings.:
2. Click here to authorize VnoTed to access your Brightkite account.
3. Optionally download a special client for your iPhone or Blackberry, on the Brightkite site. Also add a couple of placemarks for places like "home" or "office" that you'll be able to access from VnoTed.
4. Call VnoTed at (978) 631-1302 to leave your first voice note. During the call, you'll have the choice of just using your currently checked-in position, or specifying a new one, with a zip code, or placemark.
5. Sign up for FriendFeed. This is the best place for you and your followers to view your voice notes. You'll especially want to subscribe, from within Friend Feed to you MediaRSS stream of voice notes, delivered by Brightkite. Follow this link to set that up, and use http://mitavnoted.appspot.com/feed?brightkite_id=your_brightkite_userid as the feed url.
6. Now take a look at your FriendFeed stream here and you should be able to see your first voice note, with a map and Play button, in you FriendFeed activity stream.

Quick VnoTed

To just make a quick call to leave a voice note at your currently checked-in location try calling (978) 631-1300

Next Steps

You can sign up for an instant messaging service called Imified, and use a robot I've customized for VnoTed, to create some hashtags. Then, during a VnoTed session, you'll be able to label your voice notes for the benefit of your users.

To get started with the robot, from Google Talk, or one of the other partipating services, send the message "help" to vnoted@bot.im. Read more about how to use Imified at their website.

It's a Mashup, and it's Open Source

Fundamentally, VnoTed runs on Google App Engine, and so we have the full power of the Google data centers to back us up. Beyond that, VnoTed is a mashup of several different services. For those who want to learn more about this architecture, I describe it here.

Get Involved

I'm happy to share some lessons learned in the development of VnoTed. In fact, I've placed the code in a git repository, and am releasing it as open source.

Questions or comments?

Email me.

Call my Google Voice support line: