Witlingo, a McLean, Virginia-based startup that enables organizations and companies to engage with their audiences using voice, digital audio and conversational AI, has launched the first Digital Social Audio channel in the U.S. focused exclusively on giving city residents a way to share thoughts with their local government directly via voice.
Witlingo’s pilot client for this, the City of Edina in Minnesota, uses Witlingo’s Audio Station technology for its Station: Edina website, allowing residents the unique opportunity to connect with their government through the simple click of a button. Visitors to the web page can record their thoughts and feelings on a topic the City poses using any smartphone, tablet or desktop browser. Alternatively, voice comments can also be made through a phone call. Recordings are then added to an audio carousel on the page for others to listen to.
Witlingo CEO Dr. Ahmed Bouzid pointed to the huge popularity of podcasting, the mainstream adoption of smart speakers, such as the Amazon Echo and the Google Nest, and the ubiquity of AirPods as evidence that we are entering a new era of digital information creation and consumption.
“The convenience that audio provides, in terms of its minimal impositions on the speaker and the listener, perfectly explains its recent rapid adoption,” explained Dr. Bouzid. “Audio and voice are the only mediums where you don’t have to look at anything or hold anything to give or receive information.”
The City of Edina launched its Audio Station web page in May and looks forward to increasing the tool’s popularity among its residents.
“We are using the software as an engagement tool to interact with our residents in a new way,” said Edina’s Digital Communications Coordinator Brittany Bader. “To start, we are using it to ask residents monthly questions related to living in and enjoying the Edina community. We also see the possibility for it to be used to collect ideas, receive feedback and share concerns as well. We are excited to partner with Witlingo on this new initiative, gain more resident participation and continue exploring ideas for how it could provide value to residents and the City.”
Witlingo’s Audio Station product enables the City of Edina to not only listen to what residents have to say but also to receive automatic transcripts that they can search, a sentiment scoring for each audio and a summary of the main points from a collection of audios. There is also the ability to control how the audios are displayed on a web page, such as giving them a title or author name if desired.
“We were made to live in our real, three-dimensional world, so we don’t always want to be connected to our screens,” said Dr. Bouzid. “However, we don’t want to disconnect completely. And so, we are turning to digital audio because it lets us have the best of both.”
For more information on Witlingo products and services, visit witlingo.com or contact Brandy Hofstedt at brandy@witlingo.com
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