The future of On-Hold Marketing

Posted by Matt on January 14, 2010 @ 3:43 pm
Categories: Audio Technology, Fun & Games
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Mother's Retro Future Car | c/o quasimondo @ Flickr

It’s 2010, which means it’s officially The Future. We’re all using jetpacks to get to work, using teleporters to go on city breaks, talking to family with our watches, that kind of thing.

Well, sort of. Google and Apple taking over the world besides, we’re not quite as advanced as our forefathers imagined. It’s easy to laugh at old science fiction stories, movies and games now we’re here, but some of them really did think we’d be in flying cars by now. Even Arthur C. Clarke, one of the most nerdy celebrated science fiction writers in the world, thought we’d be playing with gas monsters on Jupiter by next year.

So, in the spirit of predicting the future (and because it’s trendy to talk about the next decade), we thought we’d gather ideas about the way On-Hold Marketing might change and develop. Click ‘read more’ to see what we came up with. ...read more

The evolution of on-hold production technology

Posted by Jason on December 1, 2009 @ 11:05 am
Categories: Audio Technology
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CD rainbow | Photo by lostash @ Flickr

Photo credit: Iostash @ Flickr

In the same way we now watch Blu-ray over Betamax, and listen to MP3s instead of cassettes, the technology for on-hold messaging has advanced greatly in the last ten years.

At PH Audio we’ve used a number of methods to deliver music on hold, and our use of audio technology is something we’re always looking to improve and develop. So, from CD players that jumped and warped, to digital playback with a lot of flexibility, in this post you’ll find our own rough audio technology timeline.

...read more

Demystifying Google Wave

Posted by Mariela on November 24, 2009 @ 10:25 am
Categories: Audio Technology
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Beautiful Wave

What would email look like if it was invented today?

That’s what Google asked themselves and Google Wave is their answer. Their point is that email has been around for forty years, and even though it’s still the primary form of electronic communication today, it’s certainly not the only one. So, they set about creating a way to merge the best of email, social networking and instant messaging to create a super communication tool, namely Wave.

Wave is still a prototype. It’s currently available by invitation only so its usage is limited to a lucky few until all the bugs have been ironed out. Google Wave is perhaps most well known for being at best baffling, and at worst, completely unfathomable. We’re not one of the lucky Wave account holders at PH Audio Blog, but we’re taking on the challenge of demystifying the Wave using that fine resource – t’internet.

...read more

The new platform: Google dials into Ringback Advertising

Posted by Matt on August 26, 2009 @ 9:49 am
Categories: Audio Technology
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Image by gruntzookiImage credit: Gruntzooki @ Flickr

The rise and rise of free stuff

You’d be hard-pressed to miss the rise of free media content. In general, we’re expecting more for less – reading more free news online, downloading more free music online, enjoying more texts, more call-time minutes, watching telly on the internet, and getting the latest news through our phones. There are so many ways we can get so much stuff — and we’re not really paying for any of it.

But what we are doing is watching, seeing, hearing and consuming a lot more advertising. ...read more

Spotify iPhone app set to rock the Apple cart

Posted by Matt on July 29, 2009 @ 9:43 am
Categories: Audio Technology
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‘iTunes killer’ squares up

Tech news has been dominated in the last few days with Spotify’s submission of a mobile version of its increasingly popular streaming music program to Apple’s iPhone App store. Or in plain English — Spotify’s working on an application for the iPhone that could pose a serious threat to the dominance of iTunes. Plainer English? A good old-fashioned and very public scrap. ...read more

35,000 year old instrument shows we’ve always connected through music

Posted by Matt on July 27, 2009 @ 3:43 pm
Categories: Audio Technology
Tags: ,

Bone Flute

Clues about the start of modern culture found in a cavern

It looks like a twiglet or some kind of organic toothpick, but this spindly thing is actually a flute – and German researchers reckon it’s the oldest musical instrument ever found. Dating back more than 35,000 years, it’s part of a set found in Hohle Fels, south west Germany, ingeniously made from bits and bobs found spotted about – including mammoth tusks and vulture wing bones.

It’s believed they come from a period when modern humans started colonising Europe; a time when you’d get your message across with a big stick and putting people on hold might have been another name for torture. ...read more