Croak.It! Enables One Click Voice to Web Communication

By Tech Wire Asia | 8 June, 2012

Text does not quite convey emotions and feelings, which is why Kharagpur, N. Srinivasa Teja and Protik Roychowdhury of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) have developed a simple idea that lets people communicate with their own personal voice over the web. Croak.it! launched earlier this year, and the service facilitates voice communication in three easy steps: Push, Speak and Share.

The two final-year university students were accepted into the iAccelerator program hosted by the Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) at the Indian Institute For Management (IIM) prior to forming Blank Page Innovations Private Ltd as a company to deliver their service. Both founders agree that text-based emoticons don’t help much in conveying expressions. To deliver the message textually and contextually right, an individually distinct voice is needed. They strive to provide a platform that breaks the boundaries by moving beyond language barriers.

Croak.It! lets users share thoughts and ideas with anyone online, such as friends, relatives and family within 30 seconds. The Croak.It! Application Programming Interface (API) also lets developers incorporate voice services into their own apps. A good use would be a service that lets customers leave their feedback without the need to key in text. Service providers can also converse with the customers more personally through voice messages.

Going a little bit deeper, the API can be used to develop a plethora of voice-based apps. For instance, developers can simply copy and paste two lines of code from the Croak.It! API and add a line of code to change the frequency — and therefore the pitch — of the voice played back.

Aside from the API, users can utilize the service through the Croak.It! web application, Android and iOS mobile apps and browser bookmarklets, where the service can appear as pop-up button.

For bloggers, this service can be used to instantly share thoughts in a more personal manner, and likewise get voice feedback from followers and readers.

The service allows users to express themselves better by letting them “croak.” This frees users of the shackles of a text box and 26 letters of the alphabet. Croaks are 30-second voice snippets saved on cloud, which can be placed anywhere in cyberspace on virtually any device. Croaks can likewise be shared over various platforms, including Twitter and Facebook, or sent via email or even through a simple URL.

To give better understanding of how it works, we might want to take a look at the demonstration video.