It’s been a while now since I’ve been involved in Yackpack (it was cool finding Leeander in the same circle without knowing he even knew Yackpack thanks to the invitation of its founder and CEO of the company, BJ Fogg (to whom I was introduced by the great Nick Finck).

Basically Yackpack is an online tool (may I say Web 2.0 or RIA? built on a Flash interface and streaming engine that let’s you build networks of people (circles) that you can contact using your voice.

Yackpack is for the email what podcasting is for blogging –Matteo

Someone might think this is hot water: it’s been since the spread of email usage that anyone can embed voice messages in emails; I remember using the first voice tools for syncronous comunication back in 1998. But Yackpack is something more (I’ve already written something for the italian readers of the Flashability magazine): it’s asyncronous exactly like the email, but it’s completely web based.

It was really useful to me when I was in Budapest early this December trapped in a all-day-long meeting and needed to fastly get in touch with my crew at CT|DND: I’ve created a circle and dropped my team in, it was really easy to listen to their recorded messages and properly reply: using your voice you avoid misunderstandins, you’re more direct, you can set the mood of your thoughts; things simply impossible to the email.

BJ got the brillant idea to set up a group of Yackpack users to continuously feedback each single build (and they have one delivery nearly each 2 weeks); it’s very exciting watching the interfaces and interactions getting better and better just in front of me.

Another interesting fact is that, thanks to the media Yackpack is based on (the voice) I found myself (and A LOT of others) including personal details about the where and when they’re yacking (yes m’am: a neologism even though it’s business related: it’s a kind of bridge between stroytelling and comunication.
It might be the future. And the guys and Yackpack are working hard to have this done.