RAZZ Simplifies Web Audio Recording

Startup RAZZ recently unveiled its Flash based Mixer application that lets users record messages and spice them up with sound effects and music. Behind the scenes of the product are two former Winamp developers, Tom Pepper and Jonathan Ward.

Although Winamp is still slowly chugging along, the majority of the Nullsoft team left parent company AOL in November 2004. Most of the development team have taken similar roles at other music-related companies, or started their own projects.

Winamp creator Justin Frankel formed Cockos Incorporated and recently launched the first version of REAPER, a multi-track audio recording and editing application. Steve Gedikian, who designed the Winamp interface, now works on iTunes at Apple, while early Nullsoft employees Ian Rogers and Rob Lord helped Yahoo launch its Music Engine.

Ward joined Pepper, who was one of the creators of Shoutcast, at RAZZ earlier this year. The company has previously focused on the mobile space, offering what it calls "RAZZ packs" to wireless users. Each pack contains sound effects that can be inserted directly into a phone conversation, and they are sold like ringtones through companies such as Jamster.

RAZZ Mixer, however, takes aim at a different segment of the market: social networking and blogging. The impetus behind the concept is that Web users want something more personal than simple text messages and comments, but not as intrusive or complex as video. Some examples would be an audio birthday message or invitation to an event.

The audio recordings can be easily made using the RAZZ Mixer interface, which requires Adobe Flash, and can last up to 1 minute long. The company offers a myriad of sound effects to make the process creative and surprisingly fun. MP3 files can also be uploaded as background music as long as they are smaller than 6MB in size.

The RAZZ Mixer service is free, and users can then embed the recording into Web site, be it a MySpace comment or blog entry.

Although RAZZ has some ideas for making money from the service, such as extended recording length and additional effects, the current focus is to build up a userbase virally. The goal is that when a user is "razzed" he or she will respond by making a recording of their own. Each user can store a maximum of 5 recordings on the service, but older recordings can be overwritten with new ones.

But can RAZZ Mixer really take off in a marketplace filled with social networking upstarts? Ward, RAZZ's director of Web products, thinks so, pointing out that while there are a number of services to embed photo slideshows and video clips into sites, audio has largely been ignored. His first goal is to simply expose users to the new service, and build a community around RAZZ.