Text to speech podcast? a good idea?

[roosevelt]

Hello everyone,
I see there's a pretty big buzz going on with Odiogo and how it converts blog entries to Speech. I used them for a day but didn't like the advertisement within an entry.

So I decided to make my own Speech tool and it works somewhat like here: http://www.rooseveltrp.com/blogs/4/W...ategories.html.

Now my main question is, is text-to-speech really a good idea, and what kind of blog usually use such technology?

Overall how does it benefit the webmaster?

[doctornuke]

Hi ,would like to know this too , just interested in how it looks and work..
4-5 years ago ,I have the same idea to make text speak , but since youtube ,metacafe etc. ,I discovered that video speaks better than other text converting programs . Just IMHO.
regards

[ryanhellyer]

I was about to reply and say hell no! What an awful way to present your content to your visitors. I assumed the conversion from text to speech would sound awful, but on listening to that example in the link you gave above I am quite impressed.

The most obvious use for this would be on websites frequented by blind people. It could also be useful for people who want to listen to your blog whilst driving.

Perhaps it would suit news websites? (for listening to the news whilst driving/working)

[roosevelt]

Thanks guys i appreciate the feedback. I am gonna figure out how people can actually listen to my podcast using itunes or something .

[carrot07]

Actually the visually impaired would benefit from this service. My mom has macular degeneration and listens to a service that reads the daily newspaper. There are books on tapes as well. I was on a blog last week and the site owner is handicapped and is encouraging those to address these issues with there forums and blogs. Sorry can't remember the name of the site. Site has a picture of the guy and his dog.

[farmer]

Actually the visually impaired would benefit from this service. My mom has macular degeneration and listens to a service that reads the daily newspaper. There are books on tapes as well. I was on a blog last week and the site owner is handicapped and is encouraging those to address these issues with there forums and blogs. Sorry can't remember the name of the site. Site has a picture of the guy and his dog.

I know there is a freeware panopreter that can read read text file and MS word file.

[DrAnujGupta]

great job...

[farmer]

Are there any free voice engines? It looks like only voices from Microsoft are free.