Searching for people to read to me.
April 21, 2011 3:15 PM Subscribe
Is there a service that takes articles from the web and reads them for you?
I've got more long form web articles in my Instapaper/bookmark-to-read-later queue than I have time to read. I also have an hour/day of comute time. Since I can't read while driving, I'm wondering if there is a service out there that would take articles from the web (or, any text, really), make a recording of a person reading them and then generate an mp3.
Does such a service exist?
(My first attempt to solve this was to use the built in text-to-speech generator on Macs. It does an okay job, but it's nothing I'd want to listen to for more than a paragraph or two. The other thing I looked at was the Radio Reading Service that a lot of libraries have, but that's specifically for folks who can't read for themselves. )
I've got more long form web articles in my Instapaper/bookmark-to-read-later queue than I have time to read. I also have an hour/day of comute time. Since I can't read while driving, I'm wondering if there is a service out there that would take articles from the web (or, any text, really), make a recording of a person reading them and then generate an mp3.
Does such a service exist?
(My first attempt to solve this was to use the built in text-to-speech generator on Macs. It does an okay job, but it's nothing I'd want to listen to for more than a paragraph or two. The other thing I looked at was the Radio Reading Service that a lot of libraries have, but that's specifically for folks who can't read for themselves. )
Just curious ... how much would such a service be worth to people? What would you be willing to pay? I don't know of one ... but it's a great idea that I know someone would be interested in implementing. Perhaps others do, though.
Also, just since the kindle is mentioned above ... you can send web articles easily to a Kindle and activate text to speech, but I imagine it is not any better quality than a Mac's text to speech. (I don't know because I don't have a mac, just a kindle).
posted by batikrose at 3:32 PM on April 21, 2011
Also, just since the kindle is mentioned above ... you can send web articles easily to a Kindle and activate text to speech, but I imagine it is not any better quality than a Mac's text to speech. (I don't know because I don't have a mac, just a kindle).
posted by batikrose at 3:32 PM on April 21, 2011
Yeah, I just tried my own suggestion with my Kindle using a txt file I made myself and it works fine, although the robotic voice won't win any awards. With the new Kindle (with ads) at just $115 or whatever, that might be a good solution for you (given that a Kindle is pretty nice in any event).
posted by Admiral Haddock at 3:35 PM on April 21, 2011
posted by Admiral Haddock at 3:35 PM on April 21, 2011
Listening to the Kindle is kind of like listening to Stephen Hawking. Which is fun and all, but maybe not something you want to listen to for an hour.
posted by chatongriffes at 3:35 PM on April 21, 2011
posted by chatongriffes at 3:35 PM on April 21, 2011
You may have an easier time if you seek out content that is already in available in audio form. Consider the Economist, which provides a full audio version of all of the articles in its print edition.
posted by samthemander at 4:15 PM on April 21, 2011
posted by samthemander at 4:15 PM on April 21, 2011
This exists already.
A lot of obscure (i.e. non-Apple) MP3 players have this functionality built in. I owned one in 2005 or so that you could dump text files on, and it would read them when they came around in the playlist. The speech quality wasn't very good, probably worse than the Mac. I imagine if you look for a modern version the quality may have improved.
posted by benzenedream at 4:22 PM on April 21, 2011
A lot of obscure (i.e. non-Apple) MP3 players have this functionality built in. I owned one in 2005 or so that you could dump text files on, and it would read them when they came around in the playlist. The speech quality wasn't very good, probably worse than the Mac. I imagine if you look for a modern version the quality may have improved.
posted by benzenedream at 4:22 PM on April 21, 2011
Best answer: I had some friends in college who used to do this for blind students, with library materials unavailable otherwise (or quickly enough otherwise) and were paid by the office of student disabilities or whatever it was called. For one person it turned into a long-term gig reading journal articles for a professor. She still gets journals in the mail, marked up, reads them aloud, and e-mails them back. She likes the topic, and the professor likes her voice and method of reading. She's an at-home mom now and makes a little extra money for her family while her kid is at playschool.
Personally, I'd certainly do it for pay, especially if we happened to share the same taste in articles. Find someone with a pleasant enough speaking voice who adds some feeling to the reading, and make an offer.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 4:24 PM on April 21, 2011 [1 favorite]
Personally, I'd certainly do it for pay, especially if we happened to share the same taste in articles. Find someone with a pleasant enough speaking voice who adds some feeling to the reading, and make an offer.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 4:24 PM on April 21, 2011 [1 favorite]
This was exactly the purpose of Hinty, but I'm not sure they ever got up and running for real. Something to watch for though.
posted by mnemonic at 4:26 PM on April 21, 2011
posted by mnemonic at 4:26 PM on April 21, 2011
Response by poster: To clarify my request, I'm looking for a human to do the reading. Not a machine.
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Admiral Haddock, et al. The Kindle to me sounds very close to the "Alex" voice on a mac. For those interested in the robotic version, you can dump text into a .txt file and the do 'say -v Alex filename.txt' from the terminal command line to have it read it.
This is not what I'm looking for though. I can listen to a little of that, but not a lot. Those processes have gotten a lot better over the years, but they still lack the enough in dynamics/intonation/soul/whatever that I find I tune them out after a short time.
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samthemander: I didn't know about the economist stuff. I'll look into that. Though I'd really like to get the content I'm after which tends to come from all over the place.
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benzenedream: The Text2Go service you link to is also robotic. Appreciate seeing the service, but not what I'm looking for.
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Eyebrows McGee: Outside of finding a service, I think you are on the right track with, "Find someone with a pleasant enough speaking voice who adds some feeling to the reading, and make an offer."
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mnemonic: I hadn't heard of "Hinty" before. I'll see if I can score an invite.
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rube goldberg: I've put anything up on Mechanical Turk, but it might just go. Without having tried it yet, my first thought would be that quality control might be an issue. Of course, one way to approach it would be as an audition, get a few people to read and then contact the best one to setup a longer term agreement.
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As an aside, it certainly looks like there is business opportunity here if you can navigate all the rights issues.
posted by StimulatingPixels at 5:38 PM on April 21, 2011
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Admiral Haddock, et al. The Kindle to me sounds very close to the "Alex" voice on a mac. For those interested in the robotic version, you can dump text into a .txt file and the do 'say -v Alex filename.txt' from the terminal command line to have it read it.
This is not what I'm looking for though. I can listen to a little of that, but not a lot. Those processes have gotten a lot better over the years, but they still lack the enough in dynamics/intonation/soul/whatever that I find I tune them out after a short time.
--
samthemander: I didn't know about the economist stuff. I'll look into that. Though I'd really like to get the content I'm after which tends to come from all over the place.
--
benzenedream: The Text2Go service you link to is also robotic. Appreciate seeing the service, but not what I'm looking for.
--
Eyebrows McGee: Outside of finding a service, I think you are on the right track with, "Find someone with a pleasant enough speaking voice who adds some feeling to the reading, and make an offer."
--
mnemonic: I hadn't heard of "Hinty" before. I'll see if I can score an invite.
--
rube goldberg: I've put anything up on Mechanical Turk, but it might just go. Without having tried it yet, my first thought would be that quality control might be an issue. Of course, one way to approach it would be as an audition, get a few people to read and then contact the best one to setup a longer term agreement.
--
As an aside, it certainly looks like there is business opportunity here if you can navigate all the rights issues.
posted by StimulatingPixels at 5:38 PM on April 21, 2011
Response by poster: P.S. Prospects of Hinty don't look good. The Twitter account they used for requests started Oct. 16 and hasn't had a post since Oct. 25. (I'm assuming those dates are in the year 2010, but there isn't a year listed.)
posted by StimulatingPixels at 5:51 PM on April 21, 2011
posted by StimulatingPixels at 5:51 PM on April 21, 2011
I actually paid people on Mechanical Turk to do some reading for me as an experiment once. I paid $5 for half an hour. That may have been too much though. How much are you willing to pay?
Audible.com sells read-aloud versions of major newspapers and magazines, but they're quite expensive. I suspect any competing Web service without publisher agreements would get sued by them (especially if it sold the same recording to multiple customers, which sounds like a copyright violation).
posted by miyabo at 9:32 PM on April 21, 2011
Audible.com sells read-aloud versions of major newspapers and magazines, but they're quite expensive. I suspect any competing Web service without publisher agreements would get sued by them (especially if it sold the same recording to multiple customers, which sounds like a copyright violation).
posted by miyabo at 9:32 PM on April 21, 2011
Response by poster: miyabo: How was the quality you got back?
posted by StimulatingPixels at 9:48 PM on April 21, 2011
posted by StimulatingPixels at 9:48 PM on April 21, 2011
I did 3 different segments for $5 each. Two were mediocre, one was AWESOME.
posted by miyabo at 6:26 AM on April 22, 2011
posted by miyabo at 6:26 AM on April 22, 2011
Response by poster: Follow up: I ended up doing an experiment with another askmeta filter user where I paid him to record some for me. Just sent him a list of a few articles and he recorded them and e-mailed me mp3s after exchanging funds via paypal. They sound great, but the process would get expensive fast.
If you've got a few things you need, it should work fine. Even though I didn't go that route, the Mechanical Turk option for finding a person is probably a good way to go too.
Overall, if someone could figure out the licensing deal, it looks like there's a nice opportunity for a business that operates at a larger scale here. That way, the folks doing the recordings could get fair compensation while spreading the cost over a larger subscriber base.
posted by StimulatingPixels at 9:29 AM on May 10, 2011
If you've got a few things you need, it should work fine. Even though I didn't go that route, the Mechanical Turk option for finding a person is probably a good way to go too.
Overall, if someone could figure out the licensing deal, it looks like there's a nice opportunity for a business that operates at a larger scale here. That way, the folks doing the recordings could get fair compensation while spreading the cost over a larger subscriber base.
posted by StimulatingPixels at 9:29 AM on May 10, 2011
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posted by Admiral Haddock at 3:28 PM on April 21, 2011