Blog To Speech
Listen to this blog post in your browser:
Powered by Amazon Polly.I've noticed an interesting trend on some of the blogs I follow. More of them - though by no means the majority - are including audio versions of the content.
The usually look something like this:
or
The ones which have this are mostly using commercial Text-To-Speech (TTS) engines. Although a few of the (perhaps wealthier?) bloggers have hired people to record audio versions of their posts newsletters:
I find this curious. I don't think it is bad or wrong or unbloggerly. Just a bit odd. I'm from the generation who hated phone calls and ruthlessly mocked voicemail. And now I see the youth leaving each other voicenotes and I feel bemused.
Reading is faster than listening. For me, at least. But reading requires focus. It's hard to cook dinner while reading text. But it's pretty easy to do most things while a podcast prattles on in the background.
Obviously people with visual impairments use TTS systems. And they often have those tools built into their computer or browser. But most people with adequate sight don't know how to use their machine's accessibility capabilities. So perhaps having an easily-findable MP3 of the article is sensible?
I often edit old blog posts. Sometimes to merely change a typo, other times to cover up evidence of my muddled thinking. In the land of traditional audio, that's a problem. It's tricky to re-record something and edit it together seamlessly. But, with TTS, it is the work of seconds.
Anyway, that's a long rambley way of saying that I'm experimenting with adding an audio version of my posts. If people like it, I'll start adding it to all of them - and back filling the old posts.
If you think this is a good idea, or a terrible waste of time, be a sweetheart and drop a comment in the box, yeah?
| Reply to original comment on twitter.com
| Reply to original comment on social.tchncs.de
Bill Williams says:
| Reply to original comment on hackers.town
Denny says:
| Reply to original comment on twitter.com
But, while @girlonthenet's written content is already popular, the audio recordings are incredibly popular. Perhaps a different audience?
(And perhaps even better than TTS for accessibility?)
| Reply to original comment on twitter.com
Avery K says:
The TTS are a little too uncanny for me, but as my eyesight gets worse, I’ll probably overcome my reluctance.
| Reply to original comment on twitter.com
| Reply to original comment on mastodon.se
| Reply to original comment on twitter.com
Coralie Mercier says:
Firefox on the desktop offers this as part of its “reader” option (clean, clutter-free version of the page) and I have been using it for years.
That got me to looking at Amazon Polly and there are some cute voices there. The difference between "Neural" and "Standard" is quite noticeable and I liked that we can pick different regional accents — for English there's Australian, British (they mean RP, obv), Indian, New Zealand, South African, US and Welsh; for Spanish there's Castilian, Mexican and US. (They also handle a Welsh-language voice, as opposed to Welsh-accented English language, though not in "Neural".)
It'll be a while before they're as good at imparting emotion as audiobook narrators, but they do a surprisingly ok job at reading plain old text…
Blog To Speech - In My Voice said on :
| Reply to original comment on
More comments on Mastodon.