Flickr and AudBlog - Blogging For The Eyes And Ears - Forbes.com
Flickr and AudBlog - Blogging For The Eyes And Ears - Forbes.com
Forbes.com: Blogging For The Eyes And Ears
Blogging For The Eyes And Ears
Arik Hesseldahl, 11.12.04, 10:00 AM ET
NEW YORK - Last year it seemed everyone had a blog. The word blog--in case you didn't already know--comes from the contraction of Web and log, and more than a few times last year it was combined in some way with the phrase "blah, blah, blah."
Indeed, that is what the whole "blogging revolution" seemed to be about--endless gabbing about pretty much any topic by a few million souls with more time than talent. And while a few real gems (see: "Best Blogs") emerged from it all, on the whole most blogging needs to remain what it is, a private form of entertainment and information.
But this week I finally decided to stop ignoring two recent additions to that world: mobile and multimedia blogging.
I tried a new service called Flickr, created by a company called Ludicorp, based in Vancouver, Canada. It's still in beta. After using it once, I became fascinated by the potential of instantly publishing photos taken on a camera phone. Flickr, which is free to use at its basic-level account, works with major blogging services like Google's (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) Blogger, Six Apart's Movable Type and TypePad, LiveJournal among others.
Flickr is an amazingly easy tool to use for adding pictures of any kind to a blog, whether they're taken by a traditional video camera or a wireless camera phone.
For my first effort I snapped a picture of a willing co-worker with my Motorola (nyse: MOT - news - people ) V710 phone. Then I typed up a message that went out over the Verizon Wireless network to Flickr, which automatically published the photo to a test blog I maintain via Blogger.com. I followed it up with a couple of blurry shots of Times Square and my local subway train pulling into the stop.
To publish in this way, all I had to do was create an account. Flickr's set-up wizard walks you through the process of setting up specified e-mail addresses for sending photos. You'll use one address for sending pictures that you simply want to store and maybe work with later. Another--which is what I used to publish my phone pictures--instantly publishes the picture you send and any text in the e-mail that comes with it to a blog that you designate.
The other tool I tried this week was AudBlog, which creates audio postings to a blog. It's also free to try, but to continue using it beyond the first posting you pay $3 per month via eBay's (nasdaq: EBAY - news - people ) PayPal.
Audblog, created by San Francisco-based ListenLab, allows you to record via phone a four-minute message by calling a specified phone number. They're recorded in Apple Computer's (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ) QuickTime format, and the sound files themselves are hosted directly by the Audblog service. It publishes a graphic to the blog that says "play this audio post", which when clicked launches the QuickTime audio file in a new browser window.
Forbes.com: Blogging For The Eyes And Ears
Blogging For The Eyes And Ears
Arik Hesseldahl, 11.12.04, 10:00 AM ET
NEW YORK - Last year it seemed everyone had a blog. The word blog--in case you didn't already know--comes from the contraction of Web and log, and more than a few times last year it was combined in some way with the phrase "blah, blah, blah."
Indeed, that is what the whole "blogging revolution" seemed to be about--endless gabbing about pretty much any topic by a few million souls with more time than talent. And while a few real gems (see: "Best Blogs") emerged from it all, on the whole most blogging needs to remain what it is, a private form of entertainment and information.
But this week I finally decided to stop ignoring two recent additions to that world: mobile and multimedia blogging.
I tried a new service called Flickr, created by a company called Ludicorp, based in Vancouver, Canada. It's still in beta. After using it once, I became fascinated by the potential of instantly publishing photos taken on a camera phone. Flickr, which is free to use at its basic-level account, works with major blogging services like Google's (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) Blogger, Six Apart's Movable Type and TypePad, LiveJournal among others.
Flickr is an amazingly easy tool to use for adding pictures of any kind to a blog, whether they're taken by a traditional video camera or a wireless camera phone.
For my first effort I snapped a picture of a willing co-worker with my Motorola (nyse: MOT - news - people ) V710 phone. Then I typed up a message that went out over the Verizon Wireless network to Flickr, which automatically published the photo to a test blog I maintain via Blogger.com. I followed it up with a couple of blurry shots of Times Square and my local subway train pulling into the stop.
To publish in this way, all I had to do was create an account. Flickr's set-up wizard walks you through the process of setting up specified e-mail addresses for sending photos. You'll use one address for sending pictures that you simply want to store and maybe work with later. Another--which is what I used to publish my phone pictures--instantly publishes the picture you send and any text in the e-mail that comes with it to a blog that you designate.
The other tool I tried this week was AudBlog, which creates audio postings to a blog. It's also free to try, but to continue using it beyond the first posting you pay $3 per month via eBay's (nasdaq: EBAY - news - people ) PayPal.
Audblog, created by San Francisco-based ListenLab, allows you to record via phone a four-minute message by calling a specified phone number. They're recorded in Apple Computer's (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ) QuickTime format, and the sound files themselves are hosted directly by the Audblog service. It publishes a graphic to the blog that says "play this audio post", which when clicked launches the QuickTime audio file in a new browser window.