I know that there is no such thing as anonymity on the Internet, but it still freaks me out every time a site hits me over the head with it, such as Oddcast did this morning.

Yesterday I visited the site after I was sent a couple links by one of their reps and today when I went back to do a little more research for this post, I heard (while I was surfing on another tab): “Good morning! Welcome back to Oddcast!” along with a little pitch on their case studies. Always remember: Big Brother is watching.

But I digress…

Oddcast develops speech-based avatars for use in viral marketing. Think of it as a much more interesting, more high-tech version of Elf Yourself with a proper voice track. It’s actually pretty cool. I mostly played around with a demo of their “photo face technology,” and besides the whiteness of the eyes and a little bit of choppiness, the effect is realistic.

You upload a front-facing photo and customize it based on anchor pinpoints around the eyes, cheeks, jawline, nose and chin. I used a photo of me from last year:

After you’ve placed your anchors at the appropriate places, Oddcast turns it into an interactive avatar, complete with blinking eyes and moving lips, with which you can add in a corresponding voice track. I can’t seem to find any way to embed it on my page - that would have been nice. There is a feature to email to a friend (I sent my boss an MC Chris-singing avatar of himself), but you can’t save it anywhere else unless you send it to yourself as well. I took a couple successive screen shots of my own for you to get an idea:



You’ll have to try it for yourself to really see how it works, and I encourage everyone to do so at least once, although I must warn you the eyes are a little freaky. They follow your pointer around the page like the eyes in old paintings on Scooby Do.

I can’t promise that the Oddcast avatars are going to revolutionize the industry, but they are fairly addicting. When I got home for work last night, I spent far too long experimenting with it, so if you have anything you need to do, you might want hold off.