Say you’re walking down a city street with an iPhone in hand. You can fire up dozens of apps that will let you find a sandwich shop, historic marker, coupon, or other item. And now you can also listen to people tell stories tied to the place where you’re standing, thanks to a new app called Broadcastr.
The app lets anyone create an audio recording for a location and share it with the world. Then when other users are wandering by, they can fire up Broadcastr on their phone and listen to your story. Right now there aren’t all that many recordings for the Philadelphia area, where I tried out the app, but I found a few amusing anecdotes from users, a public radio story from my local NPR member station, and what sounded like an ad for a local hospital.
I worry a bit that as the audio landscape gets more crowded we’ll start to find more ads and fewer engaging stories. But right now Broadcastr is a lot of fun to play around with, especially if you’re a public radio junkie looking for people telling their own stories in their own voices.
You don’t have to limit yourself to listening to audio recordings in your area. You can also zoom out on the map to find recordings from around the globe. And you can sort by category, with recording about crime, college, childhood, or citizen journalism — and that’s just in the “C” section. There’s also a featured section, which will help you find some of the best recordings.
Broadcastr currently offers a [itunes link=”http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/broadcastr/id423169367?mt=8&uo=4″ title=”free app for the iPhone” text=”free app for the iPhone”], with an Android app coming soon. You can also access Broadcastr’s interactive web site from a desktop web browser.
