Weighing in on Anchor

Anchor was a big hit at SXSW this year much to the pleasure of its investors and founders. Thanks to my Social Geek Radio co-host Deb Evans for hipping me to the hippest place in the social sphere today. In fact Deb featured Anchor last week on our Social Geek Radio podcast’s #GeekItOut segment.

Anchor is simple app that allows users to broadcast short audio clips and it allows followers to engage and respond via audio clips as well.

For me, the most effective part of Anchor is the easy integration with Twitter. I don’t think many people are interested in cultivating a new community and new followers. While you can manage a group of Anchor followers, the key here is using Anchor as an, uhhh, anchor for audio-only content and sharing it to your current community on Twitter (as well as Facebook). In this case, Anchor is a lot like an audio YouTube: a link vault of short clips that you share on other social media.

I also like Anchor’s onboarding process. No Facebook blue arrows or anything to read; Anchor sticks to its audio focus and has a friendly voice talk you through a fast setup. Nice touch. (Note to Ello: I’m still waiting for you update my password.)