Vojo.co is a hosted mobile blogging platform that makes it easy for people to post stories from inexpensive mobile phones via voice calls, SMS, and MMS. Our goal is to foster greater inclusion in in the digital public sphere.
You don’t need a smart phone or an app to post stories to a Vojo group – any phone will do. You don’t even need internet access: Vojo lets you create an account via sms and start posting right away. In addition to content posting via voice, sms, and MMS, and sms registration, features include:tags, geocoding, maps, MMS filters, groups, and group messaging. Group admins can also send sms and multimedia content out to registered users’ mobile phones.
Vojo is powered by the VozMob Drupal Distribution, which has been developed through an ongoing collaborative design process by day laborers, household workers, students, and a diverse team from the Institute of Popular Education of Southern California (IDEPSCA).
Explore the NetStories database of online storytelling tools
http://www.netstories.org
Emma
Vojo is a simple, effective tool for makers with any level of financial resources to produce audio stories. It’s unique in that it doesn’t require a computer to use, but I think it sacrifices some intuitiveness for simplicity. I was a bit confused by the limited instructions provided when I tried to submit a story over the phone, so I had to try the process a few times before I got the timing right. The quality of the audio that resulted from the stories I submitted over the phone was not very high, so the real purpose of Vojo to me is not so much in producing a high-quality recording, but in receiving a recording from a source that has very limited resources. I did not create a group on Vojo, but I think that could be a useful way to navigate and organize stories when working with partners, especially helpful because Vojo’s website can be a bit overwhelming if you don’t know what you’re looking for. Vojo’s accessibility makes it a good addition to the toolbox of audio story creators, but it’s best used when the maker understands the tool’s particular capabilities and gifts beforehand.
Christina
I used Vojo as part of the development of an asset mapping project ( partial video documentation can be seen here: https://vimeo.com/153544828) with youth in after school programs to help them document different resources in their neighborhoods and identify concerns that they wanted to be addressed by local stake holders and decision makers.
It was easy to set up an account (only took 10 minutes) and with a free account you get an extension on the main Vojo number (for a small price you can get your own phone number but I did not test this feature so I will describe my use with the free account).
Setting up an account gives you a profile and any one from your organization or with the phone number and story code number can call in and leave a story on the account. The stories can be called in and left like a voice mail but one of the more unique features to Vojo is that you can also text in a story.
When texting in the story you provide the title, description and identifying features of the location and Vojo automatically makes a new entry for it on your story’s page. It is a great way to gather content from a large group of people, allows participants to work asynchronously and makes the aggregated content easily accessible to participants. The platform is very flexible and can be adapted for many different usages.
The free platform works for groups that have strong social bonds and investment in shared goals. It provides a great digital space for activist organizations to generate content around an event or cause or advocacy issue. For youth or groups that meet less regularly it is worth investing in the small paid account which provides users with a personalized phone number and makes leaving messages slightly easier.