While I have not yet tried the following service out due to the amount of
time and energy I spent cleaning the below article up I pass the following
article along for your information.

The complete text with related links may be read online at,
http://radio.about.com/entertainment/radio/library/weekly/aa022500a.htm

Jim
Article begins here.
Wimba Voice Forums & Email!

Dateline: 02/25/00

Wimba.com
provides digital streaming voice forums and email.  Now you can simply and
easily post voice messages and send voice email to your friends!

Wimba uses a Java applet that provides access to the Wimba Forums and
voicemail (Wimba E-mail).  To access the Forums or send Voicemail, you will
need to
go through a short, free registration process.  You will also need a Windows
95 or higher or Sun Solaris based computer with MSIE 4.0 (or higher) or
Netscape
4.5 (or higher) browser.   Wimba plans to add macintosh and Linux support in
the near future.  (please see
What's Wimba
for more information, including an excellent FAQ)

The first time the applet loads will take some time as the applet loads
information on the existing Forum posts.  The applet loads much faster on
subsequent
visits.

Wimba Forums

The Wimba Forums include a wide range of topics from jokes and humor to
poetry and storytelling, political discussions to sports talk.  There's even
a category
for talking about nothing in particular!

To listen to a posting on the forum, simply navigate the menu to a posting
that interests you and either double click on the heading or click on the
"Play"
button in the lower right window pane.  Any accompanying text will be show
in that lower right window.

To create a voice forum posting, click on the "Compose" button at the upper
left.  The "Compose a new message" will pop up.  To record, click the
"Record"
button and click the "Stop" button when through with your message.  Click on
the "Play" button to listen to your message.  You can re-record it if you
wish (or need to).

I recommend experimenting with your computer's volume controls to get the
best possible sound.

Wimba E-mail

You can send Wimba E-mail from the Wimba Forums applet by clicking on
"Voicemail" button at the top.  The voice e-mail window pop-up's control for
the voice
portion of the email work the same way as the controls for posting to the
Wimba Forum.  After recording (and testing) your message, you enter the
email
address(es) and subject of the voice e-mail, plus any text you might want to
include, and send it off!

The actual recording is kept on Wimba.com's servers for a minimum of ten
days -- your addressees will have that long to listen to your mail.

Listening to voice e-mail is very easy.  The email they receive will have a
digital audio player control built-in that will allow your addressees to
start,
stop and pause the voice recording as they desire.

Summary

Wimba Forums
is a fascinating voice community application, merging the popularity of
electronic bulletin boards and forums with streaming audio technology to
create
a new and unique World Wide Web destination!
End of text.


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