AudioBoo: the story so far

It's been just over two weeks since AudioBoo launched in the Apple App Store and ever since I've been trying to find a moment to pen some thoughts on how it's being used and progress to date. Now, with the rest of the team in Scotland, I've finally found a minute or two to blog rather than keep my nose to the contract-a-thon.

How it's doing

As an early 4iP project there's no doubt that AudioBoo has been an incredible success. Thanks to appearances on the front page of the App Store AudioBoo averaging about 1,200 downloads a day and it's now available on over 7,000 devices. Awareness has undoubtedly been raised by coverage from The Guardian, BBC and most importantly other bloggers like TechCrunch, Neville Hobson, Journalism.co.uk and Podcasting News. Some of my favorite quotes have been:

"AudioBoo may herald a new audio revolution online" Rory Cellan-Jones on dot.life

"Here’s the coolest iPhone application I’ve found so far this year – Audioboo...I’ve been playing with Audioboo for the past few days and, frankly, I’m addicted" - Neville Hobson

"Knocking about the AudioBoo.fm site, you can learn about White Day in Japan, listen to a German practising his guitar chords or any number of ‘boos’ that are the AudioBoo equivalent of “Testing, 1, 2, 3…” - and even those are surprisingly addictive" - Basheera Khan, TechCrunch UK

"..after using it recently in London and in a street in Paris (with public Wi-Fi) I'm impressed. It even produced a map to show where I was in Paris"  - Victor Keegan in the Guardian.

"AudioBoo has me excited. It fills a gap, it’s a missing link" - by Documentally on Our Man Inside

How it's being used

But the press coverage is only half the story. For me the most exciting thing is seeing how AudioBoo is being used. When 4iP invested in AudioBoo it hoped to support a fledgling UK start-up build a tool to empower users to better create audio journalism or first person narratives. I hoped it might see the creation and sharing of first person audio commentary by location and tag.

So imagine my excitement when I saw how The Guardian's Matthew Weaver used AudioBoo to capture audio at the G20 protests in London. Matthew posted audio interviews with Pete Murry from the Green Party, Jenny Ricks, from Action Aid and Brendan Barber, general secretary of the TUC amongst others. Truly shows just how flexible and forward thinking the Guardian's news team are nowadays.

As well as national news stories it's good to see how users reporting on hyperlocal stories and issues that wouldn't necessarily be reported. Boo user Veterus reported on a major fire in Gosport with geo-located images, photos and audio.

While a concerned resident from SE1 reported on Southwark's licensing committee.

But Audioboo's an open platform and users can use the tool however they wish. Some of my favourite, perhaps less serious boos over the last couple have weeks have been:

The BBC's Rory Cellan Jones at a secret rugby game!

and the Boo Bot's giggling baby!

How it's developing

I know all good web products are in perpetual beta but the boys at BestBefore really practise what they preach.

Over the last two weeks they've redesigned the website, developed plug-ins for WordPress, integrated with Twitter and inserted geo-location data into the Atom and RSS feeds. While I was hanging out in their office yesterday they released commenting too!

They know the site and app are far from perfect but better to release early and often taking into account users' needs than build in a bubble.

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