So AudioBoo is no more. Well, that’s not true: it’s been rebranded to AudioBoom, a brand they declare is “cooler” and with what seems to be a focus on listening, rather than creating.

I always liked the name AudioBoo – it had charm and was certainly British, if a bit twee – but perhaps for those reasons, the AudioBoom teams in New York, San Francisco and Sydney decided it had to go.

Nonetheless, the change in brand has brought me back to the platform, at least briefly. I stopped regularly using AudioBoo some time ago. I’m not sure why, as browsing back through my Boos my posts on AudioBoom reveals a plethora of charming sounds and associated images I enjoyed sharing.

Here are a few that I just picked out:

You can also listen to some of my cringe-worthy interviews, but I’m not going to share them here – you can easily find them through my profile.

Positively, AudioBoom now offers 10 minutes of free recording time. That’s up from five minutes, which often resulted in my making multiple posts for longer sounds. There’s also a handy new playlisting function that I’m using above,

So what next for AudioBoom? SoundCloud clearly has the user base when it comes to mixes and even podcasts. And if AudioBoom is moving more towards consumption rather than creation, then where will the content come from?

AudioBoo for me was always about voice and sounds, shared simply and instantly. Sounds evoke emotion and imagination in a way that short web video doesn’t, particularly when nudged along with a simple still image.

Whether there’s a niche for that simplicity in today’s social media environment of YouTubers, infographics and quick shareables is yet to be determined.