Ask HN: Listen to HN articles as radio.

[bobbriody]

Would you enjoy listening to a radio station that plays HN articles while you travel to work? I know I would! I want to listen to news that I find relevant as I commute. Unfortunately, HN, TechCrunch, and all the good nerd blogs are only available as text.

So I’m thinking of making a mobile app to deliver personalized news radio w/ content from blog and news sites.

I would use text-to-speech software when necessary, but TTS can only do so well. Most content would be pre-recorded by an actual human with a pleasant voice. (“Do something that doesn’t scale” -PG.)

So my question is: Does this sound interesting to you? If I built this, would you be excited to try it?

[FBT]

I strongly recommend you don't use any TTS at all. If I want TTS I can do it myself. I have no need of an app to do it for me.

That said, with actual human readers this could go very well. I would like, though, to point out the possibly insurmountable issue that pops up every time someone has an idea like this: copyright.

It is a sad state the current copyright laws are in, and a good example of that is how they interfere with the creation of awesome services like this one. IANAL, and all that, but I strongly suspect you'd get hammered down hard if you didn't get explicit permission from the authors of every single article you broadcast.

So seriously, speak with a lawyer, please, before taking a single step with this. Perhaps you can find a workaround, or someway to do this regardless. Or maybe not. But at least you won't drown under a mass of lawsuits.

[bobbriody → FBT]

Agreed, and thanks for the feedback. My initial (and possibly very naive) assumptions are: 1) If readers are permitted to TTS RSS feeds then human recordings "should" also be legal. (Not that I actually expect the laws to be consistent or make sense.) 2) This would be one of the first things I looked in to if I pursue this idea. 3) "If I want TTS I can do it myself." This is certainly true, but the options I am aware of do not provide a seamless interface. For example, would you want to do it yourself while driving in traffic?

[joshbert → bobbriody]

It seems like you have a pretty good idea of what you want to do. That said, assumption number 3 is not entirely true. Pocket (which is already widely used) has TTS tech integrated and it's really easy to use.

I could see the value so long as the articles are narrated by a human. A condition that, like you said, seems to have a lot of strings attached to it.

[swanson]

I think the idea is interesting - I played around with a prototype myself about a year ago (using RSS + TTS).

You might check out this startup: http://umanoapp.com/ which does almost exactly what you want. I don't know how the business model works exactly, but I would imagine that paying people to narrate would be fairly expensive.

You might also have a look at some of the stuff NPR is doing: http://www.npr.org/infiniteplayer/ http://www.npr.org/blogs/inside/2011/11/14/142303990/introdu... they are working on breaking the traditional radio show mold and queueing up individual stories based on personal recommendation.

[csixty4 → swanson]

> I don't know how the business model works exactly, but I would imagine that paying people to narrate would be fairly expensive.

They sell premium memberships now that allow for things like offline listening and better playlist management.

[bobbriody → swanson]

Thanks for showing me umanoapp.com. Definitely something to consider and learn from.

I have looked in to what NPR is doing as well. I find it motivating because they also recognize that there is a problem here worth solving.

[lbr]

Regardless of how you achieved it, it does sound interesting to me. And if you built it, I would be excited to try it. A MVP could just be a podcast. You could pick the best article from HN every day and read it yourself. See how that goes. Best of luck.

[bobbriody → lbr]

This is exactly the type of MVP I would go after: me reading HN and Tech Crunch daily.

[sriramyadavalli]

I am actually developing a service that is a text to speech solution for any app. So, while you travel to work you can listen to ur email/calendar/other data.

[jamesmoroni]

I've tried Umano but couldn't stand their reader. I listen to swell radio all the time and would love a similar service with more content.

[bobbriody → jamesmoroni]

Thanks. I am going to investigate the content from the competition and determine if I have a shot at finding a toe hold.

[gee_totes]

Have you heard of the This Developers Life podcast?

http://thisdeveloperslife.com/

[csixty4 → gee_totes]

I miss TDL. I'm sure the format was time-consuming to produce, and I know Mo's cancer diagnosis took top priority. But it was a real gem of a podcast.