First it was RSS feeds, now it’s podcasting – Reuters joins the mainstream media podcasting fray:
Get the latest on world news, politics, business, entertainment and more. Click Listen to hear the stories now or select Podcast to transfer them to your MP3 player. Each podcast contains the ten most recent news stories in that news channel. Podcasts are updated every hour.
Some interesting technology at play here. The news items are spoken in a computerized female voice which is actually quite good. The only niggle I have with the site is that, if you click on the ‘listen’ link, the audio starts streaming – but I couldn’t find a way to turn it off if you want to stop!
It’s also not clear how to get the podcasts if you want them on your PC (and, thus, your iPod). The ‘podcast’ links are to each individual news channel’s RSS feed not, as I thought, to an individual MP3 file.
Minor points, though, and I’m sure Reuters will improve the user experience as they get feedback. One suggestion – add a link to subscribe to all the news channels at once rather than having to do each one individually.
A great initiative, one that follows what CNET News is doing with their CNET News Report, a 10-minute daily tech news podcast. One difference – CNET’s are with real people and really are a pleasure to listen to, which I do every day.
Podcasting with Speech Synthesis
http://www.nivi.com/blog/article/podcasting-with-speech-synthesis/