Voice Mark by GeoGraffiti is a location-based information exchange that enables any phone user to verbally publish or retrieve point of interest information. The service aggregates user generated voice message content that 'mark' real-world places. A Voice Mark™ is a short phone message, made available to the public, that shares opinions and information about a locality, restaurant, store, park, or really any point of interest. Your local experiences, opinions, and voice is all you need - no fancy web enabled mobile phones required. Although, custom Voice Mark apps for the iPhone3G and Google Android phone are available.
If you are not able to use our iPhone/Android Voice Mark app, simply call the free service at (213) 221-3802 or use our browser-based Google map ‘mashup’ to record and publish verbal information and opinions ... or search, retrieve and listen to the other community members' Voice Mark messages.
Think of Voice Mark as a verbal bulletin board that connects your phone to the Internet for exchanging location-specific information. For example, you may have just experienced a new place or promotion, a better restaurant, a great deal or some type of solicitation. Maybe you want to warn others of a bad experience, or just have a question and need public opinion. Record your voice message and publish the Voice Mark for others to hear, benefit from, and respond to.
The Voice Mark platform was built to work via a standard telephone call and therefore can be used on any phone with any carrier. The service requires no software downloads, subscription activation, or web access requirements. With a standard telephone call, anybody can use GeoGraffiti to Voice Mark the world or search and retieve location-specific Voice Mark information.
However, if you have an iPhone3G or Android phone, you can install the free Voice Mark App from their respective app stores.
There are no subscription fees. The only possible expense to you is through the consumption of your cellphone airtime minutes. For example, if you call the GeoGraffiti Voice Mark platform, you will be making a call to the (213) area code of Los Angeles, California, which may be long distance for those remote callers not on a nationwide phone plan.
If you use our iPhone/Android app there is no need to place a call to (213) 221-3802 since all Voice Marks are published and heard via the app.
Voice Mark is 100% community driven and the content is 100% user generated voice messages. That means it's everybody's role to help ensure useful Voice Mark content ranks highly, so we encourage you to verbally respond, rate, and forward the Voice Marks you like.
The easiest way is to use our Voice Mark app for the iPhone and Android phones. If you are unable to do so, then ...
Tip: Make it short and sweet. Get to the point. Don't publish a 5 minute long Voice Mark.
GeoGraffiti is for sharing public information. Don't say anything you wouldn't want the public to hear.
In addition to the telephone interface for mobile users, we provide a Web interface through a Google map ‘mashup’. This Web interface serves as a geographical view for searching and listening to Voice Marks while at your computer, and provides more 'social networking' features like tracking your friends' Voice Marks with notification and map filter displays.
Yes, you can forward a Voice Mark sound message to anybody's phone! If you hear something you think a friend would find useful, press 4 to forward it to your friend's phone via a direct and free phone call. Your friend's phone will ring. When they answer, they will hear a greeting message created by you, followed by the Voice Mark message you forwarded. Cool, huh!
No! Your phone number, based on your caller ID, is only used internally when you set your user preferences.
First, shorten the menu voice prompts by switching from the verbose and explanatory default prompts to the short and advanced prompts. Make this user preference setting by pressing or saying 0 from the Main Menu, then option 2, then 1. All user preference elections are set to your caller ID number, so subsequent calls to GeoGraffiti from the same phone will retain these settings.
Second, understand that GeoGraffiti's IVR navigation is very similar to your mobile phone voice mail system. Below are our navigation shortcut keys.
Use 
to move back
,
and
#
to skip forward. For example
,
if you are listening to a prompt and want to skip to the end
,
press
#
...
or while listening to a list of items
,
press
#
to skip to the next item. Pressto go back to the previous item. If you want to go back to the main menu, press double star .
After you listen to a Voice Mark, you will have the ability to rate it's usefulness, create your own verbal response to the Voice Mark to add clarity, listen to others who have left a response to the Voice Mark, or forward the Voice Mark to a friend's phone, save a Voice Mark as a favorite for future reference. There are "short cut keys" to these and other features.
Click here for a printable version of the above shortcut keys and GeoGraffiti's current categories, sub-categories and tags.
Titles briefly introduce the idea and content of the corresponding Voice Mark. When users create Voice Marks, they must create a title. Good titles are phrases or short sentences that quickly summarize the Voice Mark's topic. When callers search GeoGraffiti, they are presented with a list of Voice Mark titles for review (Use the and # key to move backward and forward through the list). The titles enable you to better identify which Voice Marks are of interest. When you hear a title that interests you, press or say 1 to select and hear the full Voice Mark message.
In addition to a Voice Mark title, each voice Mark contains descriptive attributes, such as category labels, keyword descriptions, and geo-tags which link the voice mark to a specific location on the earth. Currently geo-tagging is accomplished with zip code data or latitude/longitude coordinates when possible. Use option 5 to hear the properties of a Voice Mark.
From the Main Menu press or say option 0, then 2, then 1. From there you will have the option to set the voice prompts to long or short. Set your notification preference to instruct GeoGraffiti to call you or text-message you when a response is left to a Voice Mark you create. Set your default zip code for a particular area so you don't have to enter this geo-tag each time you create a Voice Mark. Create a nickname to serve as a signature for any Voice Mark you create.
The notification user preference selection uses in-bound phone calls or text messages to notify you when you have received a new response to a Voice Mark you created. By default this notification feature is turned off and you will not receive a text message or phone call notifying you when one of your Voice Marks receives a response.
From the Main Menu press or say option 0, then 3. There you will be able to access a list of all the Voice Marks you created or a list of all the Voice Marks you have saved as a favorite, based on your phone's caller ID. Use option 7 to remove items from your list.
Please bring‘em on! Contact Us Here to report bugs, suggest features, etc.