Via Faces of Web 2.0 (“Odiogo translates your blog posts into podcasts“, 22 February 2008) I’ve just discovered the amazing Odiogo (pronounced “audio-go”).

Odiogo is an amazing innovation which enables you to have your text-based blog posts automatically translated into spoken audio recordings. The posts are then made available online as streaming audio or MP3 download.

In light of its feed-based nature, the recordings are also recognised by media players such as iTunes, Juice, and Windows Media Player. So your readers now have the option of listening to your posts on their way to work, and not just reading them.

Interestingly, the recording featured on Odiogo’s website pitches the tool as a way to avoid getting in trouble in the office for spending too much time browsing blogs and websites. I suppose I can see Odiogo’s relevance in that respect, but it’s arguably selling the tool short. To me its uses are far more valuable than that.

First and foremost are the accessibility considerations. Despite the fact screen readers and proprietary text-to-audio translation software are quite sophisticated these days, it is difficult to say how widespread their use is. Additionally I haven’t looked into the prices of these sorts of technologies, but I would hazard a guess that they aren’t cheap.

Use of Odiogo not only replicates the value of screen readers, it does it for free and incorporates popular RSS delivery methods that enable subscribing by podcasts or RSS aggregators.

Secondly there is the convenience factor. For some – particularly auditory learners – the option to sit back, close your eyes and listen to a recording is far preferable to reading the same content in text on a computer screen. Furthermore, anyone who has spent too much time online will tell you that computer monitors are not exactly easy on the eyes after a while.

From a content delivery standpoint Odiogo empowers webmasters and bloggers with the ability to expand their potential reader-base to an entirely new niche – and it does so without impacting upon the traditional textual delivery method.

Use of this service is incredibly easy. Simply visit Odiogo and enter your blog feed and email address at the top of the screen. After undergoing a quality control screening process you are sent two links:

• An enriched audio feed – which features your standard text-based blog post along with unobtrusive links to download or stream the MP3 file for each post; and
• Odiogo Control Page – This features the links to your latest files, several different options to share the feed, subscribe to the podcast in a media player, add to a website (e.g. iGoogle), or even stream all posts.

Tools are also provided for further integration into your blog. In the case of Wordpress users, Odiogo provides a plug that displays a listen button above each post.

Unfortunately the fact this blog is hosted on Wordpress.com means I can’t take advantage of this plugin, however I have burned my feed using Odiogo and will make audio recordings available for all future posts.

I’ll be including the feed link as a new option in the menu. You can also access this information below:

• Audio Enriched RSS Feed: http://podcasts.odiogo.com/tech-ticker/podcasts-xml.php
• Odiogo Control Page:
  http://podcasts.odiogo.com/tech-ticker/podcasts-html.php

References:

• “Odiogo translates your blog posts into podcasts“, Faces of Web 2.0, 22 February 2008
• Odiogo – http://www.odiogo.com/