Kathleen Kennedy talks about AudioDizer text to speech podcasts in Folio Magazine
Recently Folio Magazine profiled six key tools that improve user experience, engagement, and secure new revenue. The magazines that were profiled included:
- Backpacker.com - for their GearFinder service
- Inc.com. - for their Business Valuations Calculator
- MIT Technology Review - for Text to speech podcasts (powered by AudioDizer aka us!)
- Parenting.com - for their Birthday Cake Planner
- Kiplinger.com - for their Tax Withholding Calculator
- Hearst - for their Virtual Beauty Makeover
Kathleen Kennedy, Chief Strategy Officer of MIT Technology Review had some great quotes about our service (from Folio Magazine):
Why read a story when you can listen to it instead? That’s the question Technology Review, a magazine published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, answered when it began utilizing technology that converts the magazine’s text articles into audio podcasts that can be downloaded to an iPod or MP3 player.
“Technology Review has a menu at the top of every article with a button that allows the user to either listen to the article on a flash player or download it to their MP3 player,” says chief strategy officer Kathleen Kennedy. “Readers love the flexibility of being able to download articles to their MP3 players to listen to articles on-the-go.”
The text-to-audio tool launched on TechnologyReview.com in 2007 and was developed in partnership with AudioDizer, an MIT-founded start-up. It monitors the site’s RSS feed to determine when new articles are published and converts the text to audio. “AudioDizer’s voice engine breaks down a word into a set of sounds that when pieced together sounds like the real word,” Kennedy explains. “We offer a variety of customizable features including male and female voices, languages and music that is mashed up with a sponsorship message to create each file.”
The magazine says it has seen podcast downloads grow exponentially from around 18,000 to more than 350,000 per month. Kennedy says that while users access the podcasts free of charge, the magazine’s revenue source comes from selling sponsorships. Technology Review has a combination licensing/revenue sharing agreement with AudioDizer and revenues “exceed costs,” says Kennedy.
AudioDizer, Podcasting, Technology Review, revenue, text-to-speech