{"id":337137,"date":"2017-03-30T01:59:35","date_gmt":"2017-03-29T17:59:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/?p=1470520"},"modified":"2017-03-30T01:59:35","modified_gmt":"2017-03-29T17:59:35","slug":"stances-app-lets-you-record-a-message-for-your-congressperson-then-leaves-it-on-their-voicemail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/stances-app-lets-you-record-a-message-for-your-congressperson-then-leaves-it-on-their-voicemail\/","title":{"rendered":"Stance\u2019s app lets you record a message for your Congressperson, then leaves it on their voicemail"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Want to call your senator or U.S.\u00a0representative to let them know where you stand on an issue, but don\u2019t have the time to hunt down their phone number, wait on hold, or continually redial to get past the busy signals? A new app called Stance<\/a> aims to help. Instead of simply providing a way to call your reps, as many apps today do, Stance lets you pre-record your voice message to be left on the rep\u2019s voicemail when the phone lines are freed up.<\/p>\n

But wait!, you ask. Don\u2019t congressional staffers answer the phones? How is Stance going directly to\u00a0voicemail to play your\u00a0message on their machine?<\/p>\n

Simple. It only places the calls at night, so voicemail is sure to pick up.<\/p>\n

The initial idea for the app came from Nathaniel Teichman, COO at a small audio startup called Ense<\/a>, from Venmo co-founder Iqram Magdon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Teichman\u00a0explains he was inspired to build Stance after attending a political rally and hearing about the frustration people had when trying to call their reps.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the same time I was reading and hearing more and more about the importance of calling Congress,\u201d he says. \u201cI thought there must be a better way for people to get through so I met with a few coworkers and we realized we were in a position to come up with a better solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

The coworkers spent the next few weekends working on the app, which works on top of Twilio. They mapped out the call trees for each representative\u2019s office, so the calls can get through. The app also uses Ense\u2019s API to record, store and post the audio \u2013 which is why Stance is now an official company project within Ense.<\/p>\n

Using Stance is pretty simple. The app uses your location to identify who your representatives are, including both House reps and Senators. You\u2019re then taken to a screen where you can record your message.<\/p>\n

The app doesn\u2019t have a political agenda. Instead, it offers basic \u201chow to\u201d instructions that remind you to say your name and location, tell the rep how you stand on the issue and what you want them to do, and it suggests that you make your recording personal.<\/p>\n

The recordings are saved until after hours then sent to the reps\u2019 voicemail.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

However, there is one big caveat to using Stance: it publicizes your recordings. (The app discloses this during the sign-on process, so it\u2019s not a surprise.)<\/p>\n

Your recordings are published to Stance\u2019s website and they\u2019re tweeted at\u00a0the rep on Twitter, the company says.<\/p>\n

The latter is meant only as another way of getting the rep\u2019s attention, but tweets are not officially counted as outreach. However, many representatives have been overwhelmed with phone calls during the Trump presidency, and their voicemails remain full \u2013 sometimes, intentionally. Tweeting at least gives you another means of having your voice heard.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Of course, not everyone wants to have their messages made public \u2013 especially since they are leaving their full name and location. But at this time, there\u2019s no option to set a voice message\u00a0to private, which is something of an oversight.<\/p>\n

That could dampen Stance\u2019s potential usefulness for those\u00a0who don\u2019t want their political leanings to be publicized, or who want to share their thoughts on touchy issues more privately.<\/p>\n

For example, if you were reaching out regarding\u00a0your rep\u2019s position on healthcare, you might want to make\u00a0your message\u00a0more meaningful\u00a0by sharing your own struggles with health issues and discuss how the current system, the Affordable Care Act, has impacted your life. And you might not want that message posted publicly on the internet.<\/p>\n

One of Stance\u2019s co-creators, and Ense\u2019s Head of Product, Ashwinn Krishnaswamy,\u00a0pushes back on the privacy concerns, saying that \u201cthe public blowback hasn\u2019t been as great as we thought.\u201d That\u2019s not entirely true, though \u2013 many of the\u00a0initial App Store reviews are from people who don\u2019t like the app\u2019s public nature.<\/p>\n

Krishnaswamy says that the team is still gathering feedback about the private versus public nature of Stances, however.<\/p>\n

Stance<\/a> is a free download for iOS or Android.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"\" Want to call your senator or U.S.\u00a0representative to let them know where you stand on an issue, but don’t have the time to hunt down their phone number, wait on hold, or continually redial to get past the busy signals? A new app called Stance aims to help. Instead of simply providing a way to call your reps, as many apps today do, Stance lets you pre-record your voice message to be left… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"\/ <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5817,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[59,66,26],"class_list":["post-337137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-media","tag-techcrunch","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5817"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337137\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}