This week, Kassian Sheppard joined us on a professional placement from year two of the Creative Sound and Music degree at Newport University. As part of his placement, we asked Kassian to research and test the AudioBoo (audio micro-blogging) platform. AudioBoo is relevant to Kassian's own interests, and as it shares some commonalities with Nomos' AudioEnable project, we thought it would be useful piece of research all round. We've asked Kassian to share his research to date …

"AudioBoo is a new web 2.0 social networking platform and application for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Much like similar platforms, such as twitter, the main focus is on a quick and easy way for users to micro-blog. Specifically, AudioBoo is concerned with the creation of audio blogs. Currently, you are able to record up to three minutes of audio, add a picture, which can be selected from your existing photo album or there is an option to capture a new image, add a description of your post, and also add a tag, all of which is made very simple by AudioBoo’s user-friendly interface. As well as linking with your AudioBoo account, the application also has the capability of connecting with other platforms such as Facebook, RSS feeds, and iTunes. Also, in the very near future there are possibilities of linking AudioBoo with your WordPress and Twitter accounts.

From the perspective of my own personal interests, this platform offers some other interesting possibilities. Potentially, anyone anywhere with an iPhone could capture and instantly upload sounds; a tool like this would be of particular interest to practitioners of sonic art, and of electronic and experimental music. The ‘Boos’ that are uploaded can then be downloaded as a podcast into iTunes and subsequently be exported as a variety of formats, e.g. WAV, MP3, AIFF. This then makes the sound accessible to any music or sound editing software and therefore be used in the creation of music. There is then the possibility of re-uploading it to the community in order for it to be listened to and possibly developed.

Within this platform there are opportunities for some very interesting projects to take place, but the platform is currently being used mainly for personal blogging and journalistic purposes.

AudioBoo was brought to most people’s attention when Matthew Weaver made use of the app when reporting on the G20 protests for the Guardian."

It's interesting to hear Kassian's thoughts on AudioBoo and how a tool such as this, could have a wider application. For me, it reinforces just how valuable AudioEnable will be, not just to Radio in Schools, but in a number of different contexts and environments.