Webb’s Media

Nate and Don, early adopters that they are, pointed me in the direction of Gizmo when I was frantically trying to figure out how to record a Skype conversation. I had found several references as to how to set up recording for Skype, (explanation 1 and explanation 2—which is excellent for manipulation of Flickr to make it more interactive) but they seemed a bit more complicated than I wanted to have to deal with. Also, they required purchasing equipment that I wouldn’t ordinarily have lying around the house.

Gizmo, however, has a record feature built right in, and when you record a conversation, the file saves right to the desktop. At first I thought it was a little creepy, but when you hit the record button, an audible voice comes on that says “This call is being recorded.” I suppose that can lead to confusion that there is a third party listening, but it certainly helps ethically so there is no confusion as to what is, or is not, being recorded.

The reason I needed to record a phone conversation is for a qualitative study. Originally I had planned to interview people face to face, but in some cases, when it is better for both parties, it seems to make a lot of sense to have the conversation via distance. Of course there are differences, but the trade off of sitting in rush hour traffic for four hours in exchange for a one hour interview seems worth it.

I have only two problems with the application–it doesn’t seem to work at home, on either PC or Mac, which I attribute possibly to use of wireless internet, but I’m not sure. And the second issue is that when you buy “call out” minutes, it takes 24 hours to process, which seems excessive for an internet transaction. However, even though they advised that it would take 24 hours, it got done in less than an hour, renewing my faith in instant commerce.

But overall as a research tool, this is invaluable due to its record feature.