Odiogo - Listening to Blogs - Why Not?

I came across a post from Jeff Pulver the other day that really caught my eye, and I wanted to share it here.

His post was about a company called Odiogo, and they use text-to-speech to automatically convert your blog posts into audio posts. I think that's a great idea, and am going to look into this for myself.

Jeff provides a link where you can listen for yourself. There's also an audio sample on the company's website. The meter and cadence of the speaking is a bit robotic, but you can certainly follow the narrative. For people who don't have time to read your posts, or have a long commute, this is a great way to get your content out there and reach a broader audience. As with regular blogs, you can set up RSS feeds and subscribe to your favorite blogs who are using it. Download the files before hopping on the train or plane, and you'll never miss a post from your favorite bloggers.

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea. The website even tells you how to embed ads in your audio posts, so you can truly maximize your revenue potential, if that's what you're into.

Ideally, bloggers would voice record their posts so their followers can hear them in their natural voice, but who has the time to do that? Odiogo is an automated process, so you make a bit of a trade off in not having to do any extra work to extend your reach as opposed to strengthening your personal brand with your own audio posts. For most of us, the trade-off is a small price to pay.

I also like the fact you can do this with articles as well, so for people like me who write beyond the blog, Odiogo allows me to get a lot of content out there in a new format without a lot of extra work.

Thanks for the post, Jeff! I see that Odiogo is based in Jerusalem, and it looks like all your recent travels there are yielding some nice finds.


Technorati tags: Odiogo, Jon Arnold, Jeff Pulver