Introducing New Talking SitePal Character
I am excited to introduce my new talking character, courtesy of SitePal. If you look over at the upper left side of this site on most pages you will see the new talking character. The character actually is me, custom made from my photograph. If you click on the player, you will hear a personal welcome message from me.
I met up with the SitePal people in February at the Small Business Summit, and came to realize that there’s a lot more to SitePal, in addition to the talking characters.
For instance, you can create animated voice FAQs for a website. We’re working on the animated FAQs for the radio show website (we get tons of inquiries from prospective guests and the FAQs are used regularly over there).
Another thing you can do with SitePal is create brief voice messages behind keywords in a website. The words look like a hyperlink, but when you click on the link, instead of jumping over to another Web page you hear a brief audio message. There is an example in this blog post by CEO, Adi Sideman.
For me, making the decision to replace the old photograph that appeared on the left side of this site with a talking character was a big decision.
Last year I had removed the photograph for several months. Traffic dropped. I brought the photograph back and traffic increased almost immediately by 10%. What I learned from that experiment is not that I have a great photograph (trust me, I don’t) but that in this impersonal world people hunger for a personal connection. So I look on the animated character as a way to speak to people who visit this site.
Also, since my business is small, I am looking forward to using some of the advanced capabilities of SitePal as a virtual employee, such as with the FAQs mentioned above. Hiring people in my business is a huge decision. I need as much help as I can get without adding to overhead or working more hours.
Of course, I think the best version of my talking character so far is on the SitePal Information Center that I set up. You can really see the detail there, because I had more room to make the player bigger. And you can find more information about SitePal, including a free trial.
I agree with your observation “in this impersonal world people hunger for a personal connection.” It’s a little hard to envision an electronic personage as “personal” though- hopefully we will never fully go to electronic front men, but considering that few of us have great photographs, it does open up the possibilities doesn’t it?
Hi James, The message is actually my voice. And it adds a level of interactivity. Amazingly, the head movements are quite similar to the mannerisms I use.
I can’t wait to show what can be done once I have the animated FAQs available.
Anita
How neat is this character? I can defitely see the potential here.
I like that the character lets you interact with web site visitors with a personal message, which a photograph does not let you do.
And people are used to avatars and electronic characters, such as in Second Life and in online games. Anyway it’s just fun to watch and play around with. Very nice!
I have seen these used on other sites and I think they are really neat. It’s nice to add a personal welcoming touch when a visitor enters your site. Let’s them know that someone “real” is on the other end.
Yours, Anita, is great! The likeness to your photo is almost exact. Very impressive!
Hi Anita! Great idea! I just recommended SitePal to a large insurance agency last week. I think it can be a useful tool to bridge the customer from shopper to buyer.
I love that the SitePal actually uses your voice! That’s the kind of interaction that is not generally available on the web. Sure, photos are great, but videos are even more effective… and although we can’t see YOU talking, this really is the next best thing.