I’m generally not all that excited about video blogging, or listening to podcasts that I’m not on, simply because I can read faster than you can talk and I like to consume information at my pace, not yours. However, after looking at Cinch for a few days, I became intrigued enough to give it a try.
Cinch, for those of you who remain unlearned in the ways of audio updates, is:
A free and easy way to create and share audio, text and photo updates using your phone or computer. Cinch enables you to capture and report on your experiences in a way that simple text just can’t do. Using a simple interface, you can make and broadcast your content creations through Facebook, Twitter, CinchCast.com and more.
Sign-up is simple. It’s pretty much a two-click process if you sign up via Facebook, which I did. You can choose a Cinch page URL and add links to your other social media locations. There is a nifty iPhone app, that lets you record Cinches, add a photo and upload them. I did an initial Cinch, reviewing Cinch, added a photo and tried to publish (e.g., upload) it via 3G. The bad news was that the process timed out, leaving me with a “Pending” Cinch on my Cinch page.
The good news is that the next time I opened the Cinch iPhone app, it prompted me to recover the audio recording. The photo was lost forever, but between the two, save the recording. A photo retake is faster and easier. I retook the photo, and tried again. Bingo.
That’s good, because for Cinch to be useful, reliable 3G uploading is a must.
It also publishes your Cinches to your Facebook profile. And to Twitter if you want. At the moment, I’m adding my Cinches to Facebook, but not to Twitter. As a non-Cinch-related aside, there badly needs to be a way to filter out certain of your Tweets before your Tweets get published to your Facebook profile, to avoid duplicate Facebook posts.
Happily, you can embed your Cinches. This will greatly increase the likelihood that I use Cinch, since anyone who has read Newsome.Org knows that I have long believed in consolidating most of my content on my page, and only pushing some of it to the various third-party networks.
My initial impression is that Cinch is well put-together, though it is still in public beta. I wish it had video capability, and perhaps that will be added in the future. In sum, I like it. The as yet unanswered question is, do I need it?
I’m not sure how much need I have for a micro-audio-blogging service, but if I do have a need, Cinch certainly fits the bill.
Newsome.Org 