Social audio platform SoundCloud has launched what amounts to an audio version of Formspring, and it’s pretty slick.
Takes Questions is an experimental Web app is designed for everyone from celebrities to everyday Joes and Josephines to engage with others via the intimate medium of sound. The service gives you a minimal, customisable homescreen with a prominent ‘Ask’ button.
Visitors can record a question as audio right from the browser. The page owner can then answer the questions from a browser, iPhone or Android phone. As each question is answered, a tweet automatically alerts the the person who asked the question and all of their followers.
Takes Questions is the first of a number of products SoundCloud plans to launch to showcase the capabilities of its API. It was initially created by SoundCloud developers in collaboration with musician Imogen Heap at the MIDEM Hack Day earlier this year. Launching in beta today, Imogen Heap has been joined by other stars such as BBC Radio One DJ Nihal; pop singer Diana Vickers; rock band The Blackout; R&B act Encore; and electropop band Fenech–Soler in allowing fans to ask questions via the service.
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If you’d like to try Takes Questions out, you can set up a page by signing in with your SoundCloud account here. Otherwise, you can ask me a question at my page. UPDATE: As the platform is currently in private beta, it’s not open to all to sign up yet. However, the first five readers to sign up here with the code TNW get an account right away.
SoundCloud CEO Alexander Ljung will be speaking at our conference next week. his presentation is titled “Sound as the Sixth Sense of the Social Graph”.
UPDATE 2: We’ve got another 50 invites: get them while they last! Sign up with the code TNW.
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