What if you could produce a podcast by just a few strikes onto the keyboard in front of your monitor? Hit in a few keystrokes and then you have your own little podcast? Does that sound cool? The folks at Talkr hopes so.
Are you confused? Here is how Talkr describes what it is they do:
Talkr provides a service that allows you to listen to your favorite text-only news sources rather than read them. If you can point us to an RSS feed (a machine-readable version of your favorite blog or news source) we will convert that feed from text to speech.
Talkr can also provide you with a podcast of your favorite news sources. This means that you can plug your MP3 player into your home computer once a day and Talkr will provide you with hours of audio content with no additional work on your part. Talkr will keep tabs on your feeds and send audio to your computer as those audio files become available.
I listened to a few that they had produced and personally, it isn’t something I would want to listen to. The reason? They use an automated “computer” voice that sounds very bland and boring. Sure, there are a few people producing podcasts out there with even more boring voices than this, but dull and uncharismatic voices or people just ain’t going to get my attention.
Another thing that kind of bugs me is that hearing people’s voice and passion behind the voice is part of the fun of podcasting. It gives the content a personality that a computer just can not copy yet.
