[LM_NET] Talkr: Creating Automated Audio Podcasts of Your Text Blog Entries

[Andy Carvin <acarvin@EDC.ORG>]

Hi everyone,

I've just started experimenting with a rather funky tool called Talkr 
(http://www.talkr.com). Essentially, Talkr is a podcast generator for 
text blogs, and it has enormous implications for people with visual 
impairments and limited literacy.

When you look at a typical blog, it's mostly text. This may be no 
problem for many people, but if you're reading skills aren't strong or 
you don't see well, text blogs can be quite a challenge. Meanwhile, 
thousands of Internet users create their own podcasts, which are 
basically blogs containing audio files. Apart from being really cool for 
everyone, podcasts are particularly useful for people who can't read or 
see well. But they're not exactly practical for the hard of hearing, 
either, who would benefit more from reading a text blog. Theoretically, 
it would be great if every person who wrote a text blog would record a 
podcast of it as well, but very few, if any bloggers bother to do this.

Enter Talkr. Talkr is a Web-based speech synthesizer that takes the 
texts of blogs and generates and MP3 file, with a computer voice 
speaking the text. For people who just want to visit their favorite text 
blogs and listens to them, Talkr works as blog management tool; you 
simply add your favorite blogs to your account, and it will create a 
computer-generated voice mp3 for each entry. Meanwhile, for all of you 
bloggers out there, Talkr lets you embed a computer-generatd mp3 into 
each of your blog entries, and supplies you with an RSS feed for them. 
This means that users can either come to your blog and click a link to 
listen to the mp3, or they can use iTunes or another podcast management 
tool to subscribe to the feed and receive each new mp3 file automatically.

Talkr is still a work in progress, but it's fascinated me to the point 
that I've decided to take a shot at integrating it into my blog. Each of 
my blog entries will now have a link at the bottom that says "Listen to 
a computer-generated podcast of this article." Clickling the link will 
bring you to the mp3 file where you can hear the text being read aloud. 
(Note: I've noticed that the mp3 files don't work immediatley when 
you've posted a new blog entry; it takes at least a few minutes to 
generate the file.) For example, here's the MP3 file that was generated 
by my last blog entry, about race and the digital divide:

http://www.talkr.com/audio/a/n/d/y/710679.mp3

Meanwhile, I've also added a new RSS feed that allows you to subscribe 
directly to the mp3 via iTunes or another podcast manager:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/carvin-audiotext

I will be very curious to hear what all of you think of this tool. The 
computer voice takes some getting used to - it's also a woman's voice, 
so don't expect to hear a radio-friendly baritone or anything like that. 
In practice, though, this tool could be used to help people who 
experience limited literacy skills or visual impairments, giving them a 
whole new way to participate in the blogosphere. Please let me know what 
you think. -andy

http://www.andycarvin.com/archives/2006/03/talkr_creating_audio.html

        
-- 
------------------------------
Andy Carvin
acarvin (at) edc . org
andycarvin (at) yahoo . com

http://www.digitaldivide.net
http://www.andycarvin.com
------------------------------

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