I have recently come across a media production/consumption app called Anchor. The app can be explained beautifully by the tagline of the application, “Anchor – Radio, reinvented”.
Anchor provides a platform for people to record their own voice or the sound around them and upload it to their channel. This creates an environment much like Twitter, but one in which it can be turned on and listened to for hours. There are already many platforms moving to anchor to publish media.
Notable Qualities & Features of Anchor
- Anchor gives you easy access to both popular stations and recent additions by providing a feature called “The Charts”. They rank the top 20 channels and the most recent 20 additions to the Anchor community.
- Anchor also categorizes their available channels into groups such as:
- News
- Tech
- Learn Something
- Sports
- Music
- Entertainment
- Life
- Gaming
- Hear Something New
- Anchor also has a unique feature that allows people to “Call In” to the station and lets the station manager feature the caller in the station and then respond to the caller. This allows people not listening to something live (a restriction of standard Radio) to interact with the show.
- Anchor makes editing of your content incredibly easy, providing transitions and background music. It is designed to work in short segments (no more than 5 minutes) and each segment can be labeled.
- Lastly, the applause button lets people applaud the station in a way that others can hear it upon playback. This allows users to know what other listeners thought was interesting and allows the content creator to know what their listeners liked. The number of applauses you receive is also publically viewable and counts towards your popularity.
Conclusion
Anchor is an up and coming tech platform that has yet to hit its peak. The ease with which you can create, edit and consume media will be a huge factor in their future and if they can build the user base broad enough, the content is there. Keep an eye on Anchor, it could just be the next big thing.
Notable Reviews
“Best New App” – Apple, Inc.
