I’m not sure how long it’s been around for, but I just came across an exciting new service called Twilio.

I think it’s easiest to think of it as glue between a voice call and a server-side application. So I call up an assigned, and my called is ‘handled’ by a script written in TwiML (Twilio’s custom markup) language which can gather information from me, in the form of keypad inputs, and then send this information (via POST) to an application running somewhere on the web.

TwiML defines several tags that your application can use:

<Say> <Play> <Gather> <Record> <Dial>

which can perform actions such as rendering text as voice, playing an mp3, gathering keypad input, recording the user’s voice, or ‘redirecting’ to another number.

At it’s core, this seems like a brilliantly simple, elegant system.  I also think that the potential here is huge, especially for markets in which data access on device is not ubiquitous. Given the single mode of communication (i.e. voice), there’s certainly not the same level of sexiness associated with iPhone or Android applications which can have lush visual representations, engaging interactions etc., but I still think that there is tons of potential here from a utilitarian perspective. Also, I can see some interesting things coming out in the Assistive Technology domain.

But that’s just my small mind trying to make sense of this all . The most exciting thing about innovative platforms is that there’s no way to predict what people will do with it, or how it will be adapted, appropriated, tweaked and twisted to do things never thought possible. I’m really excited about this new realm of ‘voice applications’ and will definitely keep an eye on how things progress …

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 10th, 2008 at 1:56 pm and is filed under Mobile Technology, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.