@keithbarney
Hi Keith,
Talko offers the same Push-to-Talk functionality seen in iMessages. In addition to that Talko offers live voice conversations with the ability to send photos & texts while talking live. This creates a very exciting show and tell experience that isn't possible with iMessages.
I was definitely interested to see the revenue model - are there other apps that have successfully used the idea of converting content from ephemeral to permanent as the free/paid line?
Here's a lovely animated GIF, taken from @ryanlawler's coverage:
Talko's been in development for over 2 years (which seems like an eternity in internet years). I just took it for a quick run and it seems very polished, certainly more feature rich than most voice communication apps on day 1. Although I love the scan-ability and asynchronous nature of text, it's much slower and carries less emotion than speech.
I need to play with this a bit before I can formulate much of an opinion.
SpeakUp
Lobe
iTunes
UbiMeet