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HELP & FAQs

What is GeoGraffiti?   ... and ...   How do I Voice Mark ™ the World?
Does GeoGraffiti support my mobile phone and carrier?
What does it cost?
Who provides the Voice Mark™ audio content?
How do I create & publish ... or ... search & listen to a Voice Mark?
Are the Voice Marks I create private or public?
Can I forward a Voice Mark™ message to a friend?
How to flag something that is not appropriate for the public?
Is my phone number exposed to the public when I call GeoGraffiti?
What is an IVR?
How do I speed up the IVR experience?
What are Voice Mark Titles?
What are Voice Mark Properties?
How do I customize GeoGraffiti's user preferences and notifications?
Tell me more about this call-back notification preference.
How to retrieve Voice Marks I previously created or saved as a favorite?
How can I report a bug or suggest a new feature?
What is GeoGraffiti?   ... and ...   How do I Voice Mark ™ the World?

GeoGraffiti is a free telephone-based service that enables any caller to verbally publish or retrieve location-specific information; it is meant to be used while out′n about ... on location. The service aggregates user generated voice message content that 'marks' real-world places. Your local experiences, opinions and voice is all you need with GeoGraffiti - no fancy web enabled mobile phones required. Although, custom GeoGraffiti apps for the iPhone3G and Google Android phone are available.

From any phone call GeoGraffiti at (213) 221-3802 or use our browser-based Google map ‘mashup’ to record and publish verbal information and opinions ... or search, retrieve and listen to the other community members' voice messages. Note: we refer to these location-specific voice messages as Voice Marks™.   A Voice Mark™ is a short phone message, made available to the public, that shares opinions and information about a locality, restaurant, store, park, ... or really anything else you can think of.

Think of GeoGraffiti as a verbal bulletin board that connects your phone to the Internet for exchanging location-specific information. For example, you may have just experienced a new place or promotion, a better restaurant, a great deal or some type of solicitation. Maybe you want to warn others of a bad experience, or just have a question and need public opinion. Record your voice message and publish the Voice Mark for others to hear, benefit from, and respond to.

Does GeoGraffiti support my mobile phone and carrier?

The GeoGraffiti Voice Mark platform was built to work via a standard telephone call and therefore can be used on any phone with any carrier. The service requires no software downloads, subscription activation, or web access requirements. With a standard telephone call, anybody can use GeoGraffiti to Voice Mark the world or search and retieve location-specific Voice Mark information. However, if you have an iPhone3G or Android phone, you can install the free GeoGraffiti App from their respective app stores.

What does it cost?

GeoGraffiti charges nothing, and hopes to keep it that way forever. The only possible expense to you is through the consumption of your cellphone airtime minutes. When calling the GeoGraffiti Voice Mark platform, you will be making a call to the (213) area code of Los Angeles, California, which may be long distance for those remote callers not on a nationwide phone plan.

Who provides the Voice Mark™ audio content?

GeoGraffiti is 100% community driven and the Voice Marks are 100% user generated voice messages. That means it's everybody's role to help ensure useful Voice Mark content ranks highly, so we encourage you to verbally respond, rate, and forward the Voice Marks you like. And of course, call-in and contribute Voice Mark reviews and opinions of your own!

How do I create & publish ... or ... search & listen to a Voice Mark?

  • Just call GeoGraffiti's phone number -or- click on a location in our map ‘mashup’ and we'll call you
  • From the Main Menu, use option 1 to create - or - option 2 to search
  • Verbally record your idea, opinion, or information and press # when done

Tip: Make it short and sweet. Get to the point. Don't publish a 5 minute long Voice Mark.

Are the Voice Marks I create private or public?

GeoGraffiti is for sharing public information. Don't say anything you wouldn't want the public to hear.

In addition to the telephone interface for mobile users, we provide a Web interface through a Google map ‘mashup’. This Web interface serves as a geographical view for searching and listening to Voice Marks while at your computer, and provides more 'social networking' features like tracking your friends' Voice Marks with notification and map filter displays.

If you would like to integrate GeoGraffiti with your GeoGraffiti Facebook ApplicationNews Feed, install the GeoGraffiti app by logging into Facebook and copy/paste the following URL http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=3344130540&ref=mf This instructs Facebook to display a notice item in your News Feed each time a friend publishes or responds to a Voice Mark.

Can I forward a Voice Mark™ message to a friend?

Yes, you can forward a Voice Mark sound message to anybody's phone! If you hear something you think a friend would find useful, press 4 to forward it to your friend's phone via a direct and free phone call. Your friend's phone will ring. When they answer, they will hear a greeting message created by you, followed by the Voice Mark message you forwarded. Cool, huh!

How to flag something that is not appropriate for the public?

Coming soon.

Is my phone number exposed to the public when I call GeoGraffiti?

No! Your phone number, based on your caller ID, is only used internally when you instruct GeoGraffiti to set your user preference selections.

What is an IVR?

IVR stands for Interactive Voice Response. It enables telephone callers to select options from a voice menu of prompts and interact with a computer phone system. Yes ... GeoGraffiti has a large and complex IVR. Hopefully the ability to gain access to wise and useful content, created and rated by your community of peers will be worth the IVR navigation effort. Plus ... thanks to our friend Geeta Malik who is the voice behind all our IVR prompts, you have a great voice to interact with.

How do I speed up the IVR experience?

First, shorten the menu voice prompts by switching from the verbose and explanatory default prompts to the short and advanced prompts. Make this user preference setting by pressing or saying 0 from the Main Menu, then option 2, then 1. All user preference elections are set to your caller ID number, so subsequent calls to GeoGraffiti from the same phone will retain these settings.

Second, understand that GeoGraffiti's IVR navigation is very similar to your mobile phone voice mail IVR. Below are our navigation shortcut keys.

Use Asteriskto move back , and # to skip forward. For example , if you are listening to a prompt and want to skip to the end , press # ... or while listening to a list of items , press # to skip to the next item. PressAsteriskto go back to the previous item. If you want to go back to the main menu, press double star AsteriskAsterisk.

After you listen to a Voice Mark, you will have the ability to rate it's usefulness, create your own verbal response to the Voice Mark to add clarity, listen to others who have left a response to the Voice Mark, or forward the Voice Mark to a friend's phone, save a Voice Mark as a favorite for future reference. There are "short cut keys" to these and other features.

  • Press or say 1 to select an item from a list, or repeat something
  • Press or say 2 to rate and rank a Voice Mark's usefulness or appeal
  • Press or say 3 to listen to others who have left responses to a Voice Mark
  • Press or say 4 to forward a Voice Mark to a friend's phone
  • Press or say 5 to access Voice Mark properties - like date, number of responses, rating
  • Press or say 7 to delete an item from your personal lists - like favorites, created, contacts
  • Press or say 8 to create and publish your response to a Voice Mark
  • Press or say 9 to save a Voice Mark to your favorite list

Click here for a printable version of the above shortcut keys and GeoGraffiti's current categories, sub-categories and tags.

What are Voice Mark Titles?

Titles briefly introduce the idea and content of the corresponding Voice Mark. When users create Voice Marks, they must create a title. Good titles are phrases or short sentences that quickly summarize the Voice Mark's topic. When callers search GeoGraffiti, they are presented with a list of Voice Mark titles for review (Use the Asteriskand # key to move backward and forward through the list). The titles enable you to better identify which Voice Marks are of interest. When you hear a title that interests you, press or say 1 to select and hear the full Voice Mark message.

What are Voice Mark Properties?

In addition to a Voice Mark title, each voice Mark contains descriptive attributes, such as category labels, keyword descriptions, and geo-tags which link the voice mark to a specific location on the earth. Currently geo-tagging is accomplished with zip code data or latitude/longitude coordinates when possible. Use option 5 to hear the properties of a Voice Mark.

How do I customize GeoGraffiti's user preferences and notifications?

From the Main Menu press or say option 0, then 2, then 1. From there you will have the option to set the voice prompts to long or short. Set your notification preference to instruct GeoGraffiti to call you or text-message you when a response is left to a Voice Mark you create. Set your default zip code for a particular area so you don't have to enter this geo-tag each time you create a Voice Mark. Create a nickname to serve as a signature for any Voice Mark you create.

Tell me more about his call-back notification preference.

GeoGraffiti's notification user preference selection uses in-bound phone calls or text messages to notify you when you have received a new response to a Voice Mark you created. By default this notification feature is turned off and you will not receive a text message or phone call notifying you when one of your Voice Marks receives a response.

How to retrieve Voice Marks I previously created or saved as a favorite?

From the Main Menu press or say option 0, then 3. There you will be able to access a list of all the Voice Marks you created or a list of all the Voice Marks you have saved as a favorite, based on your phone's caller ID. Use option 7 to remove items from your list.

How can I report a bug or suggest a new feature?

Please bring‘em on!  Contact Us Here to report bugs, suggest features, etc.