Tag Archives: Voice Map

New Voice Mark App by GeoGraffiti For iPhone and iPod Touch

Posted by Adrian Rodriguez on January 13, 2010 1 comments

The brand new Voice Mark App is now available on the iTunes App Store! It was previously called GeoGraffiti, but we have since  rebranded it to Voice Mark by GeoGraffiti. It has been a roller coaster ride building this new app for our users because we decided to rebuild it from scratch.  Why did we do this?  We spent many months collecting feedback from users and friends about what the new Voice Mark App should be able to do.  We ended up with a huge list of features that, after careful analysis, indicated that users basically wanted ALL the functionality of the GeoGraffiti Voice Mark Map within the iPhone App.  We were able to build most of the functionality in for this initial 3.0 release.  The features we were not able to complete will be coming to our users in the 3.1 version which is a very short time away from release.

One of the biggest complaints from users and friends was the App’s design.  It just wasn’t “sexy” or “pretty” enough.  How were we going to solve that problem?  Simple!  We decided to hire a very talented summer intern, Yannell Rodriguez, who would lead the graphic design of the new app.  As you will see in the video and screenshots, she did a fantastic job!

So let’s get right to it and start you off with a nice demo video that was produced by our friends at Scraster who also published a nice blog post about the new Voice Mark App.

Get the App Now

Key New Features

  • Google Maps Mashup Interface
    • You can now create and browse Voice Marks using the familiar Google Maps interface.
  • Facebook Connect Single Signon
    • To customize their accounts, users can now sign in to the Voice Mark App by using their Facebook account.  This eliminates the need to remember yet another username and password.
  • Twitter Account Linking for Voice Tweets (tweaking in Sept)
    • Link your Twitter account and now every Voice Mark you publish will automatically update your Twitter status with a link to your Voice Mark that your followers can listen to.  It’s essentially a Voice Tweet!
  • Email and SMS Notifications
    • You can configure your account to notify you when you have a new Fan/Follower and when someone responds to your Voice Marks.
  • Social Sharing and Bookmarking powered by AddThis
    • Sharing Voice Marks has never been easier!  Clicking the “Bookmark and Share” button for a Voice Mark will let you share the Voice Mark using hundreds of social sharing services such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Digg, Delicious, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, and Yahoo Buzz.  You can also forward Voice Marks to your contacts in your address book via email.
  • Create Voice Marks by inbound telephone call or iPhone Microphone
    • Voice Marks can be easily and quicklly created using a standard inbound telephone call (we call you and your phone acts as the microphone).  You can also create Voice Marks using your iPhones built-in microphone in situations where you want to capture something immediately (e.g. breaking news) and can’t wait for a phone call or when the phone lines are busy (e.g. New Year’s Eve).
  • Customizable User Profile
    • Create a user profile with a profile pic and other information such as User Name, Birthday, and Location.
  • GeoTag Voice Marks to any location
    • You have the option of using the iPhone’s GPS to GeoTag your Voice Mark to the exact spot you are standing at or to a remote location that you designate via Search/Google Maps.
  • Search for Voice Marks in any location
    • You have the option of searching for Voice Marks around you using the iPhone’s GPS or Voice Marks in a different location via Search/Google Maps.

Before & After

Old Version 1 & 2:

All New Version 3:


To view more info and screenshots of the new app, visit the product page

What Users are Saying

“The new app is so much sexier!” — EJ Liao

“Voice Marks are truly powerful” — Cordell Kennedy

“Extremely handy & innovative app.  Very user friendly.” — Karina Amezaga

“A quick and easy way to share info on locations I’ve been to” — Ben Graham

“I updated and wow the entire interface is different! Not bad.” — Eva Cheung

“I love hearing real people talking about their favorite restaurants and bars.  They give me a better idea of what a place is all about” — Luis Sotomayor

“Great way to share without typing!” — TJ Thinakaran

“An awesome informative app when on the go and need to know!!!” — RC Villareal

“I love the new design and add ons to this update.  The whole voice networking concept is definitely a great tool for tourists and education.  I like how this app has the yelp-fiend effect except through voice reviews.” — Gisselli

“I love being able to hear the genuine emotion in people’s voices … something I can’t get through reading reviews on my phone.” — Stephanie Kim

So there you have it folks … our brand new Voice Mark app!  We’ve enjoyed building this and look forward to improving it in the coming months.  Please let us know what you think and if you have any suggestions for improvement.  We’d like to thank all our beta testers for the time they spent testing the app and offering suggestions.  We couldn’t have done it without you!  Thank You.

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GeoGraffiti Celebrates Ada Lovelace Day

Posted by Adrian Rodriguez on March 24, 2009 None comments

Today, we are celebrating Ada Lovelace Day to honor the GeoGraffiti Women in Technology.  What is Ada Lovelace Day?  Taken directly from http://www.pledgebank.com/AdaLovelaceDay, “Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology. Women’s contributions often go unacknowledged, their innovations seldom mentioned, their faces rarely recognised. We want you to tell the world about these unsung heroines. Whatever she does, whether she is a sysadmin or a tech entrepreneur, a programmer or a designer, developing software or hardware, a tech journalist or a tech consultant, we want to celebrate her achievements.”

Here at GeoGraffiti, we want to thank and honor the 3 women who helped bring the latest GeoGraffiti Voice Map Mashup to life.  Here they are in alphabetical order :) …

Eva Cheung

Eva Cheung

Eva Cheung, my beautiful girlfriend, has helped with GeoGraffiti from the start.  What is her role?  One of the most important roles in any user-facing technology is that of user acceptance testing.  No I don’t mean she develops test plans and test functionality according to some test matrix.  I mean REAL honest no-hold-barred user acceptance.  Basically after I develop some feature, I want honest feedback so she’s happy to offer constructive criticism.  I’m not looking for “This is a good value-added feature…blah blah blah“  I’m looking for what a user thinks and she has said stuff about some of the GeoGraffiti features like, “That’s ugly…“, “Mmmm… yeah no… I can’t use that…“, “It sucks…“, and the ever popular, “It’s just not pretty!“  While this may sound funny, it’s feedback that we take very very seriously!  After all, GeoGraffiti is for the the community so to have someone give you this sort of feedback is priceless.  This is the stuff you want and basically the root of what caused us to completely redesign the GeoGraffiti Voice Map Mashup from scratch.  I’m not the only person who thinks this way.  In fact, Guy Kawasaki, mentions a woman’s common sense as a valuable tool in producing a technology, business plan, etc.  In one of his books he mentions that if you have an idea, run it by 3 women and if they tell you “It sucks”, “It doesn’t make sense”, “I wouldn’t use it”, etc. then you’d better get back to the drawing board.  We take this to heart and really value this sort of opinion and feedback.  For your feedback and contributions, Eva, GeoGraffiti thanks you and honors you on this Ada Lovelace Day!

Gisselli Rodriguez

Gisselli Rodriguez

Gisselli Rodriguez, my youngest sister, has helped with GeoGraffiti since this past August when she moved to LA to attend Cal State Northridge.  What is her role?  Gisselli oversees all the GeoGraffiti Voice Marks and makes sure that all the data is accurate, corrects and updates our geographic data in order for GeoGraffiti to provide you, our users, the most accurate data possible, and removes any Voice Marks that aren’t exactly legal or violate any terms of service (there aren’t that many of those, but you’d be surprised with the kind of stuff we get sometimes).  Aside from her main role, she also requests feedback from her friends and ocassionally leaves a Voice Mark.  While this is just personal, I would like to thank her for taking some work off my hands when I was busy developing the Voice Map some months ago… no joke… I had a SERIOUS case of identity theft and she was able to take care of it for me within a month!  This is huge!  I had been battling this for over a year and within a month she had my record cleaned.  For your feedback and contributions, Gisselli, GeoGraffiti thanks you and honors you on this Ada Lovelace Day!

Yannell Rodriguez

Yannell Rodriguez

Yannell Rodriguez, my other sister, has helped with GeoGraffiti since Eva told me “It’s ugly…“  What is her role?  My creativity only goes so far when it comes to graphic design so I decided I should consult someone who has a passion for this kind of stuff.  Who better than your own sister?!  It’s been a long and grueling process to get the GeoGraffiti Voice Map Mashup to the state it’s in today (yes yes I know there are still bugs… don’t worry we’re working on them :) ).  Her talent is amazing.  I’ve sat down with her countless hours just spitting out thoughts in my head about what I want and what I want to experiment with and she’s able to take this and turn it into art.  She’s also been instrumental in keeping us from making graphic design mistakes.  Much like Eva, she too will gladly tell me, “You know… this stuff just looks like @!#$” or “What are you thinking?!  That’s not the way you should do that!“  Wow… I guess after picking on her as a kid, it’s her chance to get back at me!  Ok ok… just kidding.  Again, this feedback is priceless.  We love when people are candid and don’t try to rephrase their sentences into something more acceptable.  It just makes everyone’s life easier and gets right to the point.  It’s exactly what you need when you’re working at a startup company pace!  She’s currently helping design the next version of the iPhone and G1 apps so watch out for those in the next few months!  For your feedback and contributions, Yannell, GeoGraffiti thanks you and honors you on this Ada Lovelace Day!

Don’t forget to forward this around to make sure our GeoGraffiti women are recognized today!