QlipBoard is a nifty application, just released, that is a cross between voicemail and a video email.
It’s a quirky sounding thing, because it doesn’t fit the mold of other products on the market — but it’s simple and useful enough that it could well catch on.
First, you download a small application. Then, when you’re surfing the Web or scrolling through documents, QlipBoard lets you take snapshots of pages, or of images — putting them on a clipboard. Next, you can record a message to layer on top of the images, by hitting a little red record button on QlipBoard’s dashboard — the technology is designed so that you speak into your laptop. With one click, you can then share the voice/video clip with friends.
You can also draw or paint on the content you’ve collected.
It’s handy for recording a message over slideshows, such as family pictures.
Qlip Media’s co-founder Swamy Viswanathan demoed the service for us earlier this week, and recorded this Qlip for me, based on photos he took on a vacation in Hawaii. We tested it in a crowded cafe, with plenty of background noise, but QlipBoard picked up his voice — free of microphone — with very good audio quality.
Here’s a step-by-step demo of how it works.
QlipBoard reminds mostly of the elegantly voice-over-photo album product, Voicethread, which we reviewed here. However, Qlip Board’s technology allows it to be a more routine communication product in daily work — with a production feel like Techsmith’s Camtasia or SnagIt products or Microsoft’s Photo Story.
The technology isn’t trivial. The company has worked for more than a year on the problem of maintaining voice and picture quality while turning it real-time into a small compressed wmv file. You can save the file to your desktop. Or, if you decide to share it, QlipBoard turns it into a flv file, where it can play from any browser. You can also submit Qlips easily to YouTube or Photobucket.
QlipBoard is part of QlipMedia, a company headquartered in Mountain View, Calif, with development in India. It has a first round of venture capital from Norwest Venture Partners.
The company hopes to eventually run ads on the right side of the Qlips when they are shared — at least within the free consumer version. The registration process forces you to divulge age, gender, country, zip-code — for advertising purposes. Thats an unfortunate load of info, and is the one thing that may turn people off.
It offers an enterprise version for companies (managers can record video/voice Qlips for employees, and vice versa, recording over group documents, etc) for $89.55/yr/person, and it plans to offer a “pro” version soon for small businesses, at $9.95/mo/person.
4 Comments
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anuj said:
Hi Matt,
I looked at qlipmedia myself. dont share the same enthusiasm as you about it. Personally i prefer typing in what i want to say. The whole voice record thing is an overkill for consumer market.
For the enterprise market what we need is voice notes for a powerpoint. Have you played with mixercast. They are a local startup here in Pune (india) and I dont think i have seen any coverage of them. I think they do a decent job if not a great job. Would sure love to hear what you think of them. -
Faye said:
I’ve actually used the product, and think it’s pretty neat. I think one of the most useful applications is forwarding screen shots with voice notes to, say, IT folks, or a colleague. Although the personal applications are good too - I’ve used the beta version for sending photos to friends (with my verbal annotations) and have gotten great responses. It’s a quirky way to share information, but it catches one’s attention in the way that a voicemail or an e-mail can’t.
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Telemill said:
Wow, PM when I first saw it, there were so many ways I could use this and it’s really easy for me too. That was the point, I didn’t have to “learn” new software to use it.
Here’s what I plan to use it for:
1. By E-bay auctions. I can actually use my voice to sell my stuff. I can actually show my item from all sides without having to find SPACE on a photo webserver to show 10 or so pictures. Sometimes when I buy things on Ebay, it would be nice if I can sit back and HEAR the description instead of reading it. If you can put this on E-bay auction then . . . sweet.
2. Craigslist. I could do a whole garage sale on craigslist. I can do a slide of all the things I have for sale, how much it costs, everything.
3. I can create little mini-lessons on my blog to teach people about my topic. Or create online classes that I don’t have to be THERE to do, and people don’t have to READ everything because my voice is instructing them.
4. I can instruct someone who doesn’t know how to use a feature in their software by giving them a play by play screen view and what the result should look like. I run a secretarial service and many of my clients want to know how to do things — it’s really hard doing that over the phone ’cause they have a hard time following allong.
5. I can create a scrapbook for my family of the vacation I went on with music and my voice over it.
6. My kids can create a slide-show presentation for school on a topic of their choice.
7. Or my kids and send pictures to their friends with their comments over it . . . like “Look at Tommy, he’s such a dweeb!” (With a picture of Tommy doing a dweeby thing).
That’s just 7 things off the top of my head and I just found out about the thing today from a craigslist web posting.
I’m sure you guys can think of other places you can use this. I’m sittin’ here trying to figure out how to make money using this new thing. I’m off to E-bay . . . I wonder if more people will buy from me because they don’t have to READ everything . . . just sit back and listen. Can you say . . . sales pitch?
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ssr said:
hai
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12:58 pm
qlipmedia vs mixercast « connected everywhere said:
[...] And am still trying to see why i would use it. Maybe i am being too harsh. I guess i should spend some time using it or reading bout how the founders want us to use the service. But some how i dont have the inclination to do that. Am gonna pass on that. Venture beat thinks quite highly of them ..you can read it here [...]