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Appletell’s made no secret of our big girly crush on Smule, makers of the Ocarina app, along with a slew of iPhone apps that combine interactivity with connecting people from around the world. So, it was with no small amount of excitement that I headed over to their Macworld Expo booth to speak with Ge Wang, CTO and Co-founder of Smule.

He explained Smule’s design philosophy: “Smule” is a “sonic mule,” which works to bring people together on their iPhone apps but does it anonymously. So, you can see the people flicking their Sonic Lighters across the globe, or you can hear someone in Japan playing the Ocarina, but you’ll never know who that person is. They’re building a social network of people who communicate through music. And it’s working; Wang estimates that they have over half a million Ocarina users around the world.

I asked Wang to describe their newest app, Zephyr, in which an iPhone user traces out a message in snow. Without missing a beat he described it as a chain letter—it’s designed to be passed from user to user, showing not just the final message, but the way the message was stroked out on the iPod screen—the human element.

Try as I might, I couldn’t squeeze any future product announcements out of the Smule team, although they told me they did have more coming down the road. Then I started crying, and the entire Smule team offered to calm me down with a live rendition of “Stairway to Heaven” using their signature app.

Product [Smule]