Vaestro Launched! Voice-Recording Based Forums

Vaestro, a new, voice-based forum site announced today by Matt Ready (CEO) and his team, is absolutely cool. In a matter of about two hours I began the Web Immigrant channel there and kicked off 10 different forums all discussing (literally) topics related to web 2.0. I also made eleven posts!

I have to tell you, I liked it much better than posting to text-based forums. It just felt more comfortable. And I found it to be so much more personal. When someone sounds a little sheepish about asking a question, you feel for them. I like the term WYHIWYG (What you hear is what you get), like the WYSIWYG that described how revolutionary user interfaces let word processing (or desktop publishing) users see what was actually going to print out, this new type of forum, or discussion, truly brings a new intimacy and warmth to the notion of a forum.

By way of review, the site needs some polishing, but it works well. If you have used Evoca or Odeo, you will miss the superior audio quality that is more easily achieved there, but the forum concept really works well and got me past that single hang-up. I also missed having better control over playback. The player is rudimentary, but, again, in the spirit of Web 2.0 and the preaching by 37signals.com in their eBook, Getting Real, it is good enough for release, and I am one user that will keep coming back and participating in this new form of forum.

Vaestro is free. It is also available to be used for free in the context of other websites. I aim to explore using in the context of Podango's community feature set.

Check out Vaestro. And, check out the Web Immigrant Channel on Vaestro here. You'll be hooked. I guarantee it!

And, if you find you are not, leave me a comment here!

-- Lee