Web Concepts

Archive for the ‘Blogging’ Category

Have you ever wished you could call your blog and leave a voice message for your readers? The answer is probably no. However that hasn’t stopped popular blogging platform WordPress today from adding the feature, according the company’s blog.

The new voice feature, dubbed “post by voice” can be found under the My Blogs tab and allows any user to secure a special number and code to call their blog. Once dialed, the user can input the code and record a message that will then be uploaded as an audio file and posted. For those looking to leave a message beyond their blog, they can use the Publicize feature to post the audio file automatically on sites like Facebook or Twitter.

The service is currently free to use, and each audio recording can be as long as 60 minutes in length. The company notes that this may change depending on how people react to the feature, meaning that if the feature catches on it will start charging.

While I initially didn’t see much value in this feature, I then listened to WordPress blogger Matt’s first audio recording at the bottom of his post. He mentions a few useful ways to use this feature, including launching a private blog to record notes to yourself, recording a live concert to then listen to and share later or even using it during a conference call to record meetings.

One concern is not being able to include text with the audio recordings. If a user calls in a voice recording and posts it, readers have no clue or context to tell them what they are agreeing to listen to before they click the play button. While this may not be a huge concern, I can see it hindering the feature from really catching on with users.

Alexander Graham Bell (pictured above) would be proud.

Tags: audio recording, blogging, voice message

Companies: wordpress

Have you ever wished you could call your blog and leave a voice message for your readers? The answer is probably no. However that hasn’t stopped popular blogging platform WordPress today from adding the feature, according the company’s blog.

The new voice feature, dubbed “post by voice” can be found under the My Blogs tab and allows any user to secure a special number and code to call their blog. Once dialed, the user can input the code and record a message that will then be uploaded as an audio file and posted. For those looking to leave a message beyond their blog, they can use the Publicize feature to post the audio file automatically on sites like Facebook or Twitter.

The service is currently free to use, and each audio recording can be as long as 60 minutes in length. The company notes that this may change depending on how people react to the feature, meaning that if the feature catches on it will start charging.

While I initially didn’t see much value in this feature, I then listened to WordPress blogger Matt’s first audio recording at the bottom of his post. He mentions a few useful ways to use this feature, including launching a private blog to record notes to yourself, recording a live concert to then listen to and share later or even using it during a conference call to record meetings.

One concern is not being able to include text with the audio recordings. If a user calls in a voice recording and posts it, readers have no clue or context to tell them what they are agreeing to listen to before they click the play button. While this may not be a huge concern, I can see it hindering the feature from really catching on with users.

Alexander Graham Bell (pictured above) would be proud.

Tags: audio recording, blogging, voice message

Companies: wordpress

The ICANN organization dealing with regulatory of issues associated with domain names, IP-addresses and other aspects of the functioning of the Internet, opposed the practice of correct spelling of users who receive the wrong website address. Currently some DNS-operators that convert domain names into IP-addresses and vice versa, trying to help the user requesting the wrong address. For this they return errors instead of addresses of other sites. As a result the user is automatically redirected to a site that he did not request.

Typically users are redirected to the popular portals or information and reference sites. ICANN calls this practice as potentially dangerous. First because of this increased response time. Secondly it is difficult to determine what the appropriate site is not working. Third when you try to send mail to a nonexistent address users do not receive an error message immediately.

Moreover such sites are potential target of hackers who would like to redirect users to their own resources that contain malicious programs. ICANN intends to prohibit the substitution of domains and will soon prepare a draft of an agreement with the owners of top-level domains.

PandaLabs has detected a spoof page of Facebook designed to steal passwords from users of social networks. The content and the URL of the web page are identical to the actual page content service so it is very easy to convince a user to enter their name and password. After entering the password an error page which should alert and warn the user that he is on a specially crafted website. For reference you can see the image of this error: http://www.flickr.com/photos/panda_security/tags/fakefacebook/

Any data entered on this page fall into the hands of hackers.

Jaiku claims to be about letting your friends or coworkers know not only what you're doing but also where you are via its mobile component—yet phone support is pretty limited. And though posts have a smaller size limit than Twitter, Jaiku more closely resembles a real blog site in that posts get their own pages, where comments can be added.

Jaiku's interface looks a bit more polished and more "Web 2.0" than Twitter's, but in many ways the two are nearly identical. Standout differences in addition to the post page and comments: It lets you add RSS feeds from your blog or photo site and has some nifty location capabilities (if your phone works with it).

Getting going with Jaiku involves three main steps: creating your "mini-blog," adding contacts, and setting up your mobile phone. If you just want to see all public posts without even signing up, click on Explore from the menu at the top of the Jaiku home page.

When you sign up for an account, the screen name you choose will be used for your Jaiku URL in the form name.jaiku.com. Right from the first sign-up screen, you can choose whether to make your Jaiku mini-blog visible to the public or hide it. If you choose to hide, only your accepted contacts will see your posts. It's all or nothing: You can't choose to have some posts public and others private.

Next you add a portrait of yourself—you can either upload your own, which can be any size—Jaiku will resize and crop it—or choose one of the animal heads provided by Jaiku to represent yourself. Oddly, at setup, you're not asked for your location, only at the top of a right-hand sidebar for your main page. And you can change it at any time.

Then you're asked for your mobile number. At this stage in the setup, you don't get a Next choice, but only a "Send your activation message." I'd have liked an additional choice to skip this and start adding contacts. Mobile setup is further complicated by Jaiku's being based in Helsinki. U.S. users need a Nokia S60 series phone, a java smartphone (not common for U.S. phones), or a mobile Web browser. If none of these are available to you, there's a European phone number you can text your Jaikus to after activating your mobile number. I can't imagine many U.S. users are going to want to pay for international text messaging just for this service. At least Twitter has a U.S. text number.