Mark K Smith, CEO of Nemisys, ipadio’s developer, said: “This is limited only by imagination: anywhere you can use a phone, you can use ipadio – fun, business, campaigning, publicity. It’s a very simple concept. Talk into a phone and your voice comes out on the Internet live. If you can write it, you can say it, only quicker and sometimes in places where writing wouldn’t be an option. ipadio is set to, literally, become the voice of the Internet.”
ipadio is free for consumer use. (Note: phone operators may charge for the call at their normal call rates). Already available to the listening public are:
– a series of hotel reviews by Suzy Bennett, freelance travel writer and photographer for the Daily Telegraph and Guardian who covers a range of memorable hotels, both infamous and unusual, from Edinburgh to Devon (www.ipadio.com/hotelreviews )
– an interview of Beijing silver medalist Keri-Anne Payne by Steve Parry, the BBC’s Swimming Commentator (www.ipadio.com/interviews)
– a series of live reports from mid-Atlantic by keen amateur sailor Richard Sawle and his crew, directly from the yacht Infanta over a satellite phone (www.ipadio.com/sailing)
Other business applications are expected to include live reviews on places, products, or personalities, from countries to casinos, from books to banking, and data collection by field agents. For live media reports and reports on sporting events, the possibilities are endless.
It is already being used in several commercial contexts:
– The Ministry of Justice is incorporating Ipadio into its Screenreader.net project;
– Ipadio will be used in the collection and sharing of information within a DCSF-funded project, Plings (Places to Go, Things to Do);
-Paralympics GB will use Ipadio to feature its athletes in the run up to London 2012;
– England Athletics plans to collect broadcasts of club activities and post-event interviews to put onto its website;
-The English Golf Union is aiming to broadcast post-match interviews with its players as they compete in worldwide events.
These corporate applications, developed using ipadio’s core technology, represent the way that the developer, Nemisys, is making back its investment.