93South - Thoughts on New England Web 2.0

In my earlier post about tonights Webinno 13, I was going to make a joke about how it’s become so cool to Twitter from web 2.0 events and that I would not be surprised if someone “Twittered” tonight. However, being that this is a local technology blog, I am going to try and keep it local and use Maynard, MA based Utterz and “Utter” from the event. I am not promising anything yet but I will give it at try.

Utterz is an audio version of the popular website Twitter where registered users call a pre-set number (712-432-6666) to leave short sound bytes that are automatically posted on the Utterz website. The UI is incredibly simple and very easy to use. Anyone can send an Utter in minutes using this well designed and simple website.

Although I am not sure what the commercial viability from the service is just yet, I do love the clever branding and play on words that make up the company name.

The one glaring thing that I do see lacking from the website is content portability. There appears to be no tools or widgets that allow users to post their utterz to other sites or blogs. I could be missing it but it seems that they are missing an important viral marketing aspect for their service. For example, I would put an Utterz widget on my blog for tonight if it was available. Instead, check out my Utterz page to see if I actually deliver one tonight.

UPDATE: I did find a way to embed single Utterz but I am still looking for an embed for all Utterz that dynamically updates with my latest entries.

This appears (I have not spoken with them) to be a small start-up that also has built an interesting product called Foonz, a free conference call from any telephone service that I will profile at a later date when I dig deeper into the Utterz site.