Typically for the frenetic Web 2.0 community, there’s been an awful lot of hype about mobile audio sharer AudioBoo lately – perhaps excessively so, for what is just another, albeit easier, way to get sound on to the web. But, like Twitter itself, AudioBoo’s buzz has begun to extend outside the geek fraternity and in to mainstream broadcasting (witness BBC Five Live’s Richard Bacon inviting listener comments this way this week).
If anyone wondered where the business model is in all this, it may be here – developer BestBefore Media is offering a pay-for version of AudioBoo to ITV (LSE: ITV) for the broadcaster’s latest social media project, around its FA Cup coverage on Saturday. Writes BestBefore CEO Mark Rock: “Audioboo Pro … will contain a series of web tools which make it easy for companies, particularly media companies, to manage content coming from their audiences. A key part of that is moderation.” The first pro feature lets media orgs add an invisible tag to any AudioBoo clip, essentially claiming those clips to use in their own embeddable player.
It’s the same approach tried by media sharers like Qik and Ustream.tv – keep the core service free but charge the media orgs for extra features. AudioBoo may have 4iP funding but it will certainly need some income to offset those server costs as the platform gets more popular. The service noticeably needs feature additions at both the free and the premium levels, but is generating all the right noises so far. Via J.co.uk.