Tweetrad.io is a fun little side project that converts twitter feeds into audio using text to speech.
We use a distributed network of converter bots to handle the work queue. Jobs are placed on the queue via api calls from the javascript client that interacts with twitter's search api directly in order to avoid rate limiting of a centralized search server. Our app server is a lightweight Sinatra service that handles job queueing. We stream the audio directly from our nginx web server as they become available via the conversion process.
We are trying to decide if this app has a real use case or if it's just a fun thing. One of the ideas we are thinking about is an iphone app for keeping up with your tweet stream on the go. We would love to hear your feedback.
An iPhone app would be great. Especially if it could read tweets from your followers between songs, though I'm not sure if Apple gives you enough control over the iPod to do that.
To add why, it's rare that I'd want to listen to something when it's quicker for me to scan. The only time I'd do that is if it's inconvenient for me to read, ie when I'm on the move or driving. Then, I'd like for it to be fed to me audibly.
Good job getting it up and running. What do you use for text to speech conversion?
That would be a fun idea. I'd probably buy it right away and start using it more then Tweetie (leave it open in the background while doing other work and just passively hear tweets).
Incase anyone does want to do this, Apple doesn't directly tell you when a song is starting/stopping, but they do tell you how long the song is (with MPMediaItem and the key MPMediaItemPropertyPlaybackDuration) and how far into the song you are (with MPMusicPlayerController).
I like it too, zen, especially the female voice.
Would be neat to add special effects in the audio stream, e.g. if the tweet is about "happy hour" or "party", or if it's news you could have background clip like CNN.com headlines
I assume the "music" in between readings is supposed to sound like the radio is tuning for a new station? If this is the case, it's a neat idea, but it was a little frustrating because you want to hear the music, but it's not clear - although I'm not sure on any better suggestion (i.e. elevator music, muzak..lol).
brk 23 has a good point about filters, that would definitely make it more usable.
Nice work! Haven't seen any other fun web integration of text-speech like this (I definitely don't count dictionary.com pronouncing words for me as fun!)
I don't know if it has any real business potential, but it's certainly an interesting little project. I'd love to see a blog post about how you put it together.
its a very neat project. As said before I'd also love to see how you put it together. Also, maybe you can put a little toggle button next to tweets that people can click when they think a word is not said correctly.
Very interesting project and I had fun listening through the recent tweets from HackerNews and ShitMyDadSays. A minor annoyance is the robot voice, but I realize you may be at the mercy of the text to speech engine on that one. My only criticism would be when reading @replies. It says the name of the person you're replying to twice in quick succession and it's hard to understand. I'd either say it once or just put a pause in there. ;)
This application has the potential to provide an enjoyable, useful ambient experience. Personally, I can imagine myself having this on in the background, while I'm working. Before I would consider doing that, though, the speech quality needs to be improved.
Thank you all for the great feedback. We will be replying to some of your questions. Also the How It Works, blog post is in progress. We're currently featured on the mashable.com site so we are making sure the bots continue crunching those tweets.
I love it. We generate weather updates, which I'm used to hearing read by automated voices anyway. Now it's like we have our own staff of robots to do the same: http://tweetrad.io/?q=from%3Astormpulse
"BreakingNews is excited to tell everyone that At least 17 people killed, 45 others injured after a passenger train collides with a freight train near Pakistan's Karachi."
49 comments
[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 85.9 ms ] threadI didn't look too deeply at it, would be very very good to be able to filter out dupes (ie: exclude any RT's).
We use a distributed network of converter bots to handle the work queue. Jobs are placed on the queue via api calls from the javascript client that interacts with twitter's search api directly in order to avoid rate limiting of a centralized search server. Our app server is a lightweight Sinatra service that handles job queueing. We stream the audio directly from our nginx web server as they become available via the conversion process.
We are trying to decide if this app has a real use case or if it's just a fun thing. One of the ideas we are thinking about is an iphone app for keeping up with your tweet stream on the go. We would love to hear your feedback.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1665119/how-to-play-a-son...
Good job getting it up and running. What do you use for text to speech conversion?
Incase anyone does want to do this, Apple doesn't directly tell you when a song is starting/stopping, but they do tell you how long the song is (with MPMediaItem and the key MPMediaItemPropertyPlaybackDuration) and how far into the song you are (with MPMusicPlayerController).
I assume the "music" in between readings is supposed to sound like the radio is tuning for a new station? If this is the case, it's a neat idea, but it was a little frustrating because you want to hear the music, but it's not clear - although I'm not sure on any better suggestion (i.e. elevator music, muzak..lol).
brk 23 has a good point about filters, that would definitely make it more usable.
Nice work! Haven't seen any other fun web integration of text-speech like this (I definitely don't count dictionary.com pronouncing words for me as fun!)
One issue: When speaking the number $44B, it was pronounced as "4 B" as in "four bee"
Thanks.
Awesome.
The radio sounds and overall UI/UX are brilliant though.