Tag Archives: microblogging

Utterz, Be Herd…

The Utterz booth

I’m sitting at my computer typing a blog post, that is the traditional way in which I add my content to my blogs. Me at a computer, typing. But I am a fairly active person, I go to concerts, I go kayaking and sometimes I even go snowshoeing. During those times I also would love to be able to blog. I know, I am addicted to it, I love adding content to the Internet through my several blogs.

Well, right before Blog World Expo I got an e-mail about a website called Utterz. The email stated that Utterz was going to be the official mobile blogging platform of Blog World Expo. I went and signed up for it. First of all I was blown away with the site and what it offered. In one place I could upload four types of media: text, audio, video and photos in one shot. That means that I could post an ‘Utter’ of me talking, my written words, a photo of myself and a video as well. That is a lot of content that you can do from your computer let alone from your cell phone. That is right this is mobile blogging baby and your cell phone is the key to getting the most out of Utterz.

So what to do when you do to get started with Utterz. First things first you need an account. Sign up is super easy. First you pick a handle, enter your cell phone number, choose a password, enter your e-mail address and tell em how you heard aboutUtterz (If you sign up after reading it here choose “blog or article about Utterz”) and then check off that you are older than 13 years old. Pretty simple stuff. You cell phone number is what will identify you to Utterz when you call 712-432-Mooo to leave an audio Utterz. And when you send in a text message, video or photo you will use MMS or SMS to send a message to go@utterz.com.

This is just the beginning. In fact Utterz doesn’t just lock you into their site. They allow you to post your Utterz to their site and then automatically post them to however many blogs you have as well as to the Utterz widget that you can put on your blogs. I actually have two on this blog at the moment and will probably keep the one on the top of the screen and drop the sidebar one as I want to feature Utterz prominently here on The BenSpark.

Here is a list of places where your Utterz can be herd. You can automatically have Utterz post to Myspace, Blogger, Facebook, LiveJournal, Twitter, Tumblr, Typepad and WordPress, the list is growing and more services will be added. I suggested a few to the guys from Utterz. I met Sim, Chris, Michael and Randy at Blog World Expo and they told me of a few more that are coming. I can’t wait. Here is a photo of me winning the first Moblie award as well as Bessie stuffed animal.

Photo-A-Day #945c 11/09/07

But Utterz itself is a social place where you can interact with other folks and their Utterz. You can respond with audio or text but not photos or video (yet?, soon pleas). You can choose to follow other people’s Utterz, respond to them and even display them on your Utterz widget.

Lets talk about the things for you on Utterz.com.

Your Profile – My Stall.
In your profile you can add things like name, avatar photo, your sex, there is room for 3 website addresses (please up mine to 6, please, for links to all of my blogs)
There is a my channels section where you can list where your Utterz should be listed on Utterz.com. There are channels for Arts & Crafts, Autos, Books, Comedy, Eco-Green, Educational, Entertainment, Food, Health & Fitness, Moms Rule, Movies, Music, People & Blogs, Podcasting, Politics, Social Media, Sports, Technology, Travel, Video Games. By choosing My Channels your profile appears in the listings for these channels and your individual Utterz can be seen if you tag them with the channel names. The last tab under My Stall is the Notifications section and here you can decide if you want to be notified by SMS or e-mail if a friend of yours posts an Utter, when someone replies to your utter, when you receive a message or when someone decides to follow you.

The people who follow you are called My Circle, I think that it should be called My Herd or My Pasture or The Barnyard but My Circle is cool for now. You can click on the My Circle button and see all the people that you are following as well as all the people who follow you. And there you can easily delete the subscriptions from any of the people that you follow, like if you get too addicted like I am becoming. There are tabs across the top of the list of the people that you follow titled My Circle’s Utterz, My Public Utterz, and Private and Other Site Utterz. You can click each of these tabs and sort the Utterz by Age (how old it is), Listens (what was the most listened to utter) and Grade (people can grade each of your Utterz). The invite tab can be used to invite all of your friend to Utterz. The messages button is where you can send and receive messages from the people in your circle.

Before I move onto the Favorites tab as well as the Notifications and the Connections tabs I should talk about what an utter is going to look like.

To view Utterz click on the title of it. This will open up the full utter. If there is video the video will load and you can play it. If there is audio the audio will load and immediately begin to play. If there is a photo or text you can see it and read it. If it is your utter you can edit the title, add audio, add an image, add video and add a text description. If it is someone else’s utter you can share it by posting it to your twitter account, e-mailing the link or grabbing the link so you can link to it on your blog, you can embed it into your blog. Then you can add tags to the utter, grade it and even mark it as a favorite or as inappropriate.

Also if you really like an Utter you can send it to del.icio.us, Digg, Furl, Reddit, and Stumble Upon. But that is not all because you can also reply to an utter using either Text or Audio via your cell phone.

Now to the favorites tab, this is where you can see all the Utterz that you marked as favorites, so for instance if someone posted a particularly funny photo or a great video you could favorite it and be able to call it back up easily.

The Connections tab and the Lab Tab are the same thing. This is where you decide what blogs will automatically get Utterz and which ones will not. This is also where you set up your twitter connections and pick out the widgets that can appear on your blog. I went through all of them and got one for each of my blogs, the colors are great and can match any web decor. Really they can, I have 6 blogs, and myspace, so I used many of the colors. You can also decide if you want to display only your utters, all public Utterz or just those from your circle of friends.

There is so much more to Utterz that I didn’t go into but here is an Utter by Randy Corke – I spoke with him at Blog World Expo and also when I got home because he wanted a quote from me for a press release and I won the first Moblie award from Utterz. (See Photo Above)

And here is Robert Scoble’s video of that event titled Utterz brings voice video to microblogging service.

I hope I have given you a better understanding of Utterz. It is a service I am using daily and I love it. the one thing I hate is that my phone sucks. I need to get a new one with unlimited text, pix and flix so I can send even more things to Utterz. I made and posted a very special utter just for this post. It includes audio video as well as text and sound. I hope you enjoy it and see how easy it is to “Utter now and be Herd”.

Disclosure: I was not paid by Utterz to write this post. I won a contest while at BlogWorld Expo because I became so addicted to using Utterz that my prolific writing beat out everyone else using the service. Also these guys are from MASS as well and I want to see them succeed especially since they have great people working at Utterz. I also want to spread the word to other bloggers out there and I’m pretty sure I’m going to do an Utterz only blog eventually when I get my new phone.