Utellit's Blog

This is a One-Minute Dance Party recorded live from the utellit beat laboratory. 

Many thanks to the inspiring Jeff Turner for mentioning utellit in this awesome post:  

What Utellit helps you do is polish the now of Facebook and Twitter and SMS and Email by adding a shiny touch of personal communication that deserves your distraction.

Remember the butterflies you felt in your stomach the first time you called a person you had a crush on? Remember the super awkward conversation you had? Remember how you paced around your room with a smile on your face after the conversation was over? I shudder at the thought of kids these days stealthily averting this difficult situation by shooting off a text like it’s a ninja star. The difficult, messy things in life are often the most compelling, the most invigorating.  I’m inspired by an amazing post by Erika Napoletano:

We’re continuously cultivating a garden of detachment through all of these digital means of communication. We’ve become entirely lazy when it comes to the emotional commitment it takes to cultivate relationships (of any sort) and instead, accepted that sending a text/email/Facebook message is an appropriate way to develop a connection – and at our worst, unplug completely.

I chat regularly with one of my best friends on g-chat and during our last conversation, I realized that we hadn’t spoken on the phone for over a month. I told him to hold on while I called him and the first thing he said when he answered was:  “Man – it’s great to hear your voice.” Text-based messaging is dominating the way we communicate. It’s understandable because it’s so convenient. You can shoot off a slew of texts or tweets in seconds. What’s lost are some of the things I cherish most – well-crafted sarcasm, genuine gratitude, palpable excitement. Our voices allow us to express stuff that text just can’t touch (no matter how many exclamation points you use). But it’s not just about voice. While voice is our focus at utellit, it’s not what makes me tick. It’s not what makes me want to come into work everyday.   What drives me is the belief that I'm steadily chipping away at digital detachment. The vision is so big to me because it’s what I think makes life worth living – taking that extra step to make people happy.  While I think utellit is super quick and easy to use, it’s not as quick as shooting off a text. You have to open up our app, tap record, say some words, then tap “send by SMS”. IT’S LIKE A BILLION TIMES HARDER! We admit it thought, it’s still not as quick as SMS. Utellit is not for the lazy, but rather for people willing to go the extra mile for a smile. That is the cheesiest sentence I’ve ever written but it’s true! It’s the thoughtfulness of it. My brother sent me a 2 minute utellit this morning of his one-year-old twins rambling off sudo-words. It almost made me cry. While I only live about 4 hours a way, I don’t get to visit as much as I’d like. I love those kids so much and hearing that utellit was such an amazing way to start my day. My brother knows this and he took that extra step to make me happy. I promise this is the most preachy I’ll ever be – but be kind, be original and be more personal in how you communicate. It’s important.  Cheers,

Uncanny impression of Morgan Freeman in Shawshank Redemption

Eric Gets Sick & Tackles Don Corleone My good buddy, Eric (whom you know from the Gladiator post) came down with a bit of a cold, and was waiting until he felt better to record some cool Utellits for me. I advised him, "Take advantage of the sickness and use it to record some cool voices that you can't do otherwise!" I'm so glad he listened, because this Don Corleone impression was simply moving. While listening to it, I could picture the scene unfolding in front of my eyes.  I can only imagine that this is what it was like to listen to the radio before Television had gone mainstream. Listen to the Godfather... I mean Eric and tell us your thoughts. 

Cheers,

This. This is incredible. This is an instructional video from way back in the day on how to use your new rotary dial phone. Remember to pick the phone up from the receiver and hold it to your ear. As dial telephones were introduced - replacing operator service - instructions were shown in movie theaters as to how to use the new instruments. Check out our Rotary Phone Pin Board on Pinterest   Cheers,

We at Utellit are big fans of personal sentiment and messages that will brighten an individual's entire day. Anyone can go to the store and pick out a card that some depressed, alcoholic cat-lady wrote and submitted to Hallmark for publishing. Do we really need more cards with a wise-cracking, cartoon old lady, or pictures of puppies? Okay, fine. We'll take more pictures of puppies because who gets tired of puppies? Heartless Sociopaths, that's who! We wanted to help you come up with new, innovative ways to send a personal Valentine's Day greeting to the person with whom you are in love or in like! (All links below are provided to assist you in your brainstorming and creative endeavors.)

Recite Poetry

Find a romantic love song to use as background music while conveying your sweet and loving message.

Be the guy who becomes famous from an article on Mashable about detailing how he proposed on Facebook using Utellit.

Sing your own cover of a really romantic love song.

If you're a parent, use Utellit to show your spouse how much your kids love him/her!

Maybe you don't have kids, teach your dog how to say "I love you!"

Accidentally "bump" into Rick Astley on the street and record him Rick Rolling your loved/liked one.

You could write your own "original" love song and dedicate it to him/her and perform it in person, but people have been doing that for thousands of years. Is it really that original?

Then again, you could just send something like the picture below... I think that it gets the point across.

Four Reasons Why Sound Will Be Bigger Than Video Online Earlier this month, SoundCloud founder Alex Ljung gave a presentation at LeWeb where he explained why sound would surpass video. He's got a horse in this race: SoundCloud lets users record and upload audio snippets for sharing.

Venture capitalist Fred Wilson, whose Union Square Ventures is an investor in Soundcloud, posted the video on his blog this weekend. Here's a summary:

Simplicity. Twitter is popular because it gives users a way to express themselves in only 140 keystrokes. But now everybody with a smartphone has a microphone in their pocket, and it takes only one click to record something. A lot of smartphones are getting video recording as well, but it's a lot less intrusive to record a conversation or sound snippet than it is to point a video camera in somebody's face.

You can listen while you do other things. Video requires your undivided attention, but you can listen to audio in the background while reading or doing other things. 

Creation tools are changing. People often associate audio with music that's professionally recorded by major label artists. But the tools to record and remix sounds are becoming cheaper and easier to use.

Sound is connected to your emotional centers more than video. Don't believe it? Ljung suggests plugging your ears the next time you're watching a scary movie. Without the soundtrack, it will play more like a comedy.

Awesome video on SOUND.