Tellum

by Michael Hemingway

 

Tellum is a little platform for anonymous, geolocated sound that lives on the internet.

 

The story behind this app begins with an experience I had of an item exchange box some five years ago. I loved the idea of the box; it was this little wooden thing affixed to a wall a few paces from my high school. I would pass by it every day to class. The concept of the box had so much promise. And yet, people would only fill it with trash. The value proposition of giving up physical possessions to strangers simply wasn't there: the box fell into disrepair and was eventually removed.

 

So came to me the inspiration and driving motive behind Tellum. It was to be an item exchange box, but networked around the city for that same sense of community, and it was to exchange audio instead of items; sound is far easier to give and receive, and still holds that possibility for kindness and expression. In the app, one must first record and share a sound anonymously to the network to be able to receive one.

 

The app uses modern Web Audio APIs and a PHP+SQL CRUD framework to transmit audio to users.