Enero 22, 2005

Using VOIP to Do Free International Interviews

I spent most of inauguration day in the portland web radio studio helping out with our coverage. The contribution that I am most happy about is some interviews I did on the air with 5 different people in 4 different countries: Spain, Germany, Brazil and Bolivia. I talked with them about what people in their country thought of George Bush and the U.S., and it went very well. Best of all, we used internet telephony, so it was free. My friend Lenara in Porto Alegre used her internet phone to call, but for the rest we used Skype. The tech setup was pretty jury-rigged, as we didn't have the time to prepare an actual "phone patch" sort of a set-up. Instead I ran Skype on my powerbook with a line out, and used the built-in mic to talk to the caller, while holding up the regular studio mic close to my mouth also so I could be heard by listeners. It made for an odd posture, and others in the studio couldn't really take part in the discussion. But it was still very cool. The only other problem is the net lag, but we lived with it

Posted by steev at Enero 22, 2005 01:59 AM
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