VoiceThread: A Half-Baked Media Annotation Service That Could Work, Someday
VoiceThread is the kind of application that your parents or grandparents might like. It's an interesting annotation system for photos and video. The company behind it recommends you use it to discuss your memories. I wouldn't recommend using it for much yet, though.
The gist of VoiceThread is this: you can upload photos and videos, leave voice or text comments on individual items in a slideshow and draw on the images. It's all in Flash. It's very simple, but the interface looks nice and I'm sure there's market demand for this kind of application. I don't know how many companies have started building something like this, but VoiceThread should finish the job - it's not done yet, in this case at least.
The Problems
Here comes the bad news. Upload took me forever, long enough that I was pretty sure the site was broken. Long enough that I will never use it again and I was soured on the whole experience - but maybe it will work for you. That was for photos, I didn't have the patience to try uploading videos. Hopefully the developers will be able to fix it. Eventually it seems my images did upload but it took probably 15 minutes.
There's no embeddable player, the line drawings fade too fast to do anything with, it's awkward to use. The link for people to pay $29.95 a year for a pro-account should be taken down right away. (Update: The VoiceThread founder says that much of what I say here is inaccurate. See comments below for testimony from happy customers and points of contention by the founder. This was my experience using the app and that's what I'm going to write based on. That's the risk you take asking for a review.)
Despite the problems, VoiceThread could be a nice little application. One of the problems with things like this is that all the work you put into it - or all the work your poor grandma puts into learning how to use it and then narrating over all the old photos you uploaded for her, can't be exported to the desktop and saved. Given the longevity issues of some startups like this, VoiceThread might not even end up being around longer than...well, let's not make any more grandma jokes.
In the end, VoiceThread looks like a half-baked, "light-weight" web app with a good designer and some potential. That's more than can be said about a lot of things these days; if your family doesn't want to use something more powerful, for which all of this is just a feature - then VoiceThread could be just what you're looking for, once it works better.
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I can see the value in this for certain demographics.
This has been very popular among educators. They also qualify for a free pro account. The ability to collaborate is appealing along with the power of voice, in particular for younger students provides a great entry into digital storytelling.
Not sure why you say it's not embeddable?
http://ideasandthoughts.org/2007/07/09/i-agree-alan-it-is-easy-peasy/
I love the application. I use it in classes as a way to get get students unfamiliar with anything but Powerpoint engaged in online media.
There ia a wordpress plug-in that works like a charm and I found uploading unbelievably easy.
The fact that this can be an ongoing historical artifact for families or projects makes it especially appealing...
It is nice to have a simple interface to use--one without a m8illion bells and whistles for a change...
LOn
It's important to clear up a few things here: Your information is not accurate. The player is embeddable(for free), the annotations can be set to last with one mouse click, and the upload problem, I'm certain was on your end. You also failed to mention we convert PowerPoint and PDF's into our player. Understand that your reviews can have an impact on a small company, please try to get the basic information correct.
Ben Papell
voicethread.com
I LOVE Voicethread! I use it for everything - my work and for sharing pictures and videos at home with my friends and family. Why so mean-spirited? Sounds to me like you have a case of sour grapes. Voicethread IS one of the great new web apps.
It appears that there's more going on here that I was able to see in my brief time looking at this service. It also appears that the founder has lots of friends who are teachers. I'm glad the service works well for you, I wish the VoiceThread folks nothing but the best, but it didn't work well for me and I wasn't impressed.
VoiceThread is good and has been around for sometime - why the hate filled review? Keep it up Ben and don't listen to that mean spirited person.
Marshall - you really need to take a closer and more careful look at VoiceThread. I am an educator, but I assure you I am not in bed with the management at VoiceThread. This tool is fantastic for encouraging digital storytelling - an exemplary instructional strategy. I assure you the upload troubles were not on VoiceThread's end. My upload speeds have been very good and posting comments (both audio and written) on other people's projects has been flawless. I think the tool does exactly what it intended and a more careful examination and more careful reflection of potential uses might reveal that. Your review might be more favorable if you focused more on the collaborative power of the technology here. The power in this is not just in the building of the project, its in the ease of participating in the projects of others. You are going to see VoiceThreads embedded all over the read/writeweb
I love it, my students love it, my colleagues love it and... pretty soon, the parents of my students will love it.
BUT!!!
We want to use it to make presentations, but connection speeds mean delay. How can we save it to disk?
Sam