New service gives voice to the Web

By: John Bennett

Published: Friday, April 14, 2006

Sharing photographs on the Internet, posting blog entries and participating in social networking sites are increasingly popular methods for communicating ideas and images. Evoca, a new Internet service, is now inviting people to speak up by recording and sharing audio files in much the same way that they would share photographs on a site such as Flickr.

Members of the Savannah College of Art and Design community such as interactive design and game development graduate student Chia-Hsien “Matt” Lee, graphic design graduate student Isuru Senagama, interior design junior Abby Powell and advertising design senior Eric Sharpe contributed to the development of the new service through Web and graphic design, programming, marketing, communications and branding.

“The quality and energy of undergraduate students, graduate students, and alumni has been outstanding and we are delighted to have their work being seen and heard around the world,” said Murem Sharpe, Evoca cofounder and chief executive officer. Sharpe thanked interactive design and game development department chair Josephine Leong and Director of Career Services Pat Helbig for their help in recruiting students and alumni for the project.

Sharpe said she sees voice as the “the next tool for publishing and communicating online through your telephone.”

Evoca users can also record audio through the microphones on their computers or through the peer-to-peer Internet phone service, Skype. Existing recordings can also be uploaded to the site. Then the recordings can be organized, tagged and shared with others.

Current popular tags on the evoca.com Web site include architecture, dining, ghosts, historic preservation, humor, music, storytelling and urban planning. In addition, Evoca can be used to add audio to social networking and e-commerce sites including MySpace, eBay, Xanga and Blogger, Sharpe said.

“We aim to provide the easiest way ever to create, organize, share and search voice recordings. Evoca intends to empower everyone everywhere by extending and enhancing the power of voice,” she said.

To help users get started quickly, the site offers a number of resources.

“A link called ‘How it Works’ is displayed on the main home page, even before you sign up, and on your own home page, once you are a registered member,” Sharpe said. “A member also can click on ‘How can I use Evoca?’ a link on the top of every page; the ‘FAQs’ link that take members to a handy list of common questions; and the ‘Help’ link which leads the member to the Evoca Knowledgebase, which contains numerous articles about topics relevant to getting the most from the Evoca experience.”

Sharpe said there are natural applications for Evoca among members of certain professions and those engaged in particular creative pursuits.

“Businesses can run more efficiently, journalists can capture stories more effectively, and oral historians can spread those important, personal memories that we never have the chance to hear. People will be able to make audio notes to self, keep personal diaries and record family histories,” she said.

Education is another field in which the service can be used, according to Vice President for SCAD e-Leaning Darrell Naylor-Johnson.

“Audio is at the forefront of e-learning,” he said, adding that professionals in the field have been asking, “How do we bring it into the coursework and into the experiences of students? How can we use it within the process of course delivery?”

Naylor-Johnson and Sharpe have already explored the possibilities of integrating Evoca into SCAD e-Learning environments.

“We have welcomed the opportunity to work with Darrell and his talented team members, in the development of the EvocaLearning prototype of an audio-enabled SCAD e-Learning course,” Sharpe said. “In February we were able to demonstrate these innovative new audio functions and features at the SCAD booth at the national e-Learning 2006 Conference of the Instructional Technology Council.”

Audio is well suited for use in SCAD e-Learning, according to Naylor-Johnson, because it can be easily edited and distributed. Its portability is an added bonus. For example, he said a student studying historic preservation could document a historic structure by taking photographs and recording audio with her cell phone. Professors can record lectures and individual critiques for students, who can then listen at their computers, on iPods or on other mp3 players.

Evoca users can record up to 100 minutes of audio for free. For a monthly fee, a professional account provides 500 minutes of recording time along with additional features such as the ability to record via Skype.

Sharpe said, “We are always looking for interesting new uses of Evoca for personal, academic, professional, and business settings and invite members of the SCAD community to sign up for a free member account and to share their suggestions with us through our online suggestion system, by sending an e-mail to suggestions@evoca.com, or by phoning Evoca at (912) 228-5356.”


For more information on Evoca, visit www.evoca.com.