HN Explorer

Ask HN: Listen to HN articles as radio.

10 points by bobbriody ↗ HN
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?

13 comments

[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 38.0 ms ] thread
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.

bobbriody
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.

csixty4
> 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.

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
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
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.

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
Thanks. I am going to investigate the content from the competition and determine if I have a shot at finding a toe hold.
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
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.
gee_totes
Have you heard of the This Developers Life podcast?

http://thisdeveloperslife.com/

csixty4
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.