Taking Your Blog Mobile with BuzzVoice
One of the benefits of subscribing to blogs by email is the opportunity to catch posts that may otherwise have slipped by in an endless RSS feed stream.
One such one that caught my eye was by Jason Falls over at Social Media Explorer, and his views on new mobile voice service BuzzVoice. It’s similar to Odiogo (which I’ve tried before) in that it transcribes your blog or website into an audio format. The difference with BuzzVoice is that you can get an app for your iPhone or iPod touch (currently $1.99), making it more of an audio library of your favourite blogs.
Not only that, but BuzzVoice also offers a real-time radio widget for your blog’s sidebar (take a look in my right sidebar underneath the option to read my blog on your Kindle). This plays streaming audio of all your posts, which you can listen to via iTunes or via mobile, as well as the option to grab the widget and share on other networks.
The obvious main benefit behind BuzzVoice is its ability to open up a blog or website to folks that want to listen or multi-task online, or on the go (so at the gym, in the car, on public transport, etc). Yet is also has benefits for anyone with impaired vision or sight disability, as pointed out by Glenda Watson Hyatt on Jason’s post (Glenda has cerebral palsy and is a highly respected blogger and author). Additionally, people with dyslexia and similar learning difficulties could use something like BuzzVoice to improve their comprehension of the written word.
BuzzVoice is currently in private beta, with the public launch due next month. However, John Atkinson (co-founder and CEO of BuzzVoice) has very kindly offered readers of this blog 10 private invites. All you need do is email your blog or website’s RSS feed to publishers@buzzvoice.com to be considered for the beta.
Since I’ve just installed BuzzVoice tonight, I haven’t had time to have a look at the more in-depth features available at their website. I’ll be sure to look at it in more depth soon, and share my thoughts in a follow-up post shortly.
In the meantime, what’s your take on BuzzVoice and its approach to opening up the written word?
4 Responses to “Taking Your Blog Mobile with BuzzVoice”
I remember checking out John Atkinson’s PimpMyNews.com, just about this time last year: it was better than most text-to-speech services available online at the time, but not quite there yet – you had to be pretty motivated to listen to it for long. If BuzzVoice is a new-and-improved second run at it, it looks quite promising. The voice is certainly much clearer than in the earlier incarnation, the pronunciation more accurate and the cadence more natural… good news for accessibility! Thanks for letting us take a test-drive here, Danny. This one will be interesting to watch.
.-= Rebecca Leaman´s most recent blog post …Free Guide for Online Fundraisers =-.Thanks a lot. I read Jason’s post on Buzzvoice also and have been intrigued. I currently am using the wordpress app, but looking to make some possible changes soon.
Rebecca, I’m glad you noticed the improvements we’ve made to our real-time voice platform.
With BuzzVoice, we now have offerings for both consumers on the go and publishers who want to reach them with a streaming audio version of their content.
Look forward to hearing everyone’s feedback and suggestions!
John Atkinson
BuzzVoice Co-founder & CEO
Cool stuff Danny. I cant wait to try it. Thanks for Sharing it.