Phone in your TwitterGram
Posted on Jul 4, 2007 at 14:38 UK time in Communication, Experimenting, Social Networks, Software, Web
It's already proving to be quite a popular tool, judging from the flurry of 'grams people have been posting. Being popular isn't the same as being effective, incidentally. No matter for the moment: as this medium evolves, I'm pretty sure it will quickly find a place in organizational communication.
Until now, I've only used TwitterGram once primarily because the process you have to go through really is a bit fussy, involving as it does recording on your PC or portable device in the right file format and then uploading that file via the TwitterGram website.
Now, there's a very easy way to do it, via a new dial-in service from BlogTalkRadio.
Here's how it works:
- Decide which phone you want to use to call in TwitterGrams. The phone must have Caller ID.
- Visit the new phone signup page. Enter the phone number from step 1, and your Twitter username and password.
- When you want to leave a TwitterGram using your phone, dial 646-716-6000 (a US number so +1 from outside). Leave a short message, less than half a minute (remember the 200K limit). Hang up when you're finished.
I tried it and it worked perfectly, right up to the part where the TwitterGram should have appeared on Twitter. It didn't.
The fault isn't TwitterGram's, as far as I can tell. It seems to be to do with caller ID. I used Skype to make my call. Skype does support caller ID for the UK SkypeOut number I used. But caller ID on Skype isn't foolproof.
Easier just to pick up a normal phone and make the call, I hear you say! Well, yes, but I want to use Skype. Apart from anything else, it's considerably cheaper.
I'm sure a niggle like this will be resolved sooner rather than later. In the meantime, I'm equally sure that being able to phone in your audio comments just made TwitterGram massively appealing.
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