Odiogo"s Web 2.0 "Listen Button" Lets You Instantly Hear Text Articles On Your Computer

New York, NY (PRWEB) June 7, 2007

Odiogo announced today the launch of the ‘Listen Button’ (http://www.listenbutton.com), a web 2.0 service which allows Content Publishers to provide visitors with an easy and instant way to hear regular text articles. Located near the familiar ‘Email’ and ‘Print’ buttons on top of each article in mainstream media and blogs, the Listen Button when clicked will open a player which will read aloud the currently displayed article.

“With the PC entering the living room as the brain of the home multimedia center, text content providers need tools which seamlessly turn readers into listeners,” said Marc Kawam, CEO of Odiogo.com. “Our Podcast solutions and the Listen Button empower content providers to mobilize and boost the value of their text content by making it instantly audible.”

“This audio feature is fast becoming a must-have capability for content sites,” Kawam said. “This is an essential feature for a multi-tasking environment, where people can listen to articles from their favorite sites while working on their computer or performing other tasks. The Listen Button also expands the reach of a content site by allowing vision-impaired readers and language learners to easily access the site’s content.”

Amir Orni, CEO of Jpost.com, the Online Edition of the Jerusalem Post (http://www.jpost.com), said: “The Podcast Service we launched with Odiogo was received positively by our readers and has quickly reached thousands of downloads on a weekly basis”. Orni added: “We welcome the Listen Button feature as it answers a need many of our readers had. Now, one click gets stories read out-loud on the PC.”

The Odiogo Listen Button has been adapted for major blogging platforms. Starter kits have been developed to quickly install the button on blogs developed in the WordPress, Blogger or TypePad environments. Bloggers can enable the Listen Button on their sites for free. This allows Bloggers to meet their constituencies’ desires for a more ‘easy to consume’ media – as compared to written content – at no cost to themselves.

Nigel Powell, publisher of The Red Ferret Journal (http://www.redferret.net) said: “The Listen Button is a very cool way for my readers to grab a dose of the blog while they’re busy doing other things on their PC at home or in the office. Just the very thought of it makes my teeth ache with joy.”

Stacy Blackman from Stacy Blackman Consulting (http://blog.stacyblackman.com) said: “Readers of Stacy Blackman Consulting’s blog are MBA candidates who are constantly on the move and have limited time online. Odiogo provides them not only with a way to listen to the posts on their iPod but also when they are on-line, while multitasking.”

The Listen Button is already available on several sites, among them:

Odiogo"s Web 2.0 "Listen Button" Lets You Instantly Hear Text Articles On Your Computer

Odiogo"s Web 2.0 Service Enables The Popular Politico Website To Be "Listened To" On Mobile Phones, iPods And Computers.

(PRWEB) June 26, 2008

Arlington, Virginia and Jerusalem, Israel, June 26, 2008 – Politico, a top 20 newspaper website as ranked by Nielsen Online, announced today the availability of Odiogo’s Listen-Now and Podcast capabilities on http://www.politico.com. Politico has now provided its website visitors with an easy and instant way to hear text articles. With Odiogo’s technology, Politico readers can become listeners and consume their favorite content while multitasking or on the go.

Odiogo’s solution automatically converts internet articles into high fidelity audio files, enabling listening to internet news sites and blogs on PCs and portable devices. Politico now provides any situation access to its on-line content, enabling its community of readers to ‘listen to’ their favorite articles just as they would listen to a traditional radio program. Politico’s articles can be accessed on-the-go (eye free situation) and while multi-tasking, and Politico’s readers are no longer restricted in how and when to consume their favorite online text content. Odiogo also introduces accessibility improvement for foreign readers and the vision impaired community.

“Since the inception of our website, we have been embracing web 2.0 best of breed services,” said Roy Schwartz, VP of business development for Politico. “The Odiogo solution is a continuation of this trend as it allows us to create another layer of distribution to fit some of our users’ news consumption habits.”

“We are thrilled that Politico has chosen to enable its site with our technology,” said Marc Kawam, CEO of Odiogo. “We have continued to experience significant adoption of our solutions across a variety of web and blogger sites, and the addition of Politico further confirms that website visitors are looking for alternative ways to consume content, ways that are more compatible with their mobile and busy lifestyles.”

Kawam added, “The paradigm of sitting in front of a PC and browsing news sites has now given way to new consumption habits. Today’s news consumers want to access and consume their favorite content anytime, anyplace, and as easily as possible. For example, more and more users are plugging their phone or iPod in their cars which allows them to create their own radio station with the music they like and the news sources they trust.”

“Additionally, affordable Internet access rate plans from mobile phones are creating new usage patterns. Odiogo allows end users to listen to selected news over the Internet, and these users no longer need to zoom and scroll on the tiny screens anymore in order to read a story.”

How it works

Odiogo’s infrastructure monitors the content published by Politico and scans articles as soon as they are posted. The generated high fidelity audio files can then be listened to on a variety of devices: the PC through the Listen Button feature, via Podcast on iPod/mp3 players, and on mobile phones (including the iPhone).

The audio generated by Odiogo is near-human quality, and the text-to-speech transformation is based on continuously updated dictionaries for addition of foreign words, acronyms, company names, etc. Additional technical advancements, such as content coloring and translation of formatting attributes will enhance the user experience even further.

The Politico-Odiogo service can be reached at: http://www.politico.com/odiogo

About Politico

POLITICO is a Washington, D.C.-based political journalism organization that distributes its content via the internet, newspaper, television and radio. Its coverage includes Congress, Washington lobbying, and the 2008 presidential election. POLITICO and POLITICO.com launched in January, 2007 with the mission of covering politics with enterprise, style, and impact. POLITICO is a publication of Capitol News Company, LLC.

About Odiogo

Odiogo (http://www.odiogo.com) is a pioneer in the ‘media shifting’ space, where content created for one medium is made available for consumption via many media. Odiogo provides an intelligent and automated bridge that links text-content providers and bloggers with mobile phone and MP3 enabled device users (e.g. iPod, other portable media players, PCs, etc.). Odiogo enables content providers and bloggers to quickly and automatically generate audio from textual content, allowing consumers to easily ‘listen to’ their favorite online news/information.

Thousands of bloggers have already signed up to the free service on http://www.odiogo.com and installed the widget for popular blogging platforms such as TypePad, Blogger, WordPress, TeraPad, MojoPortal, Drupal, BlogEngine.Net, etc.

For More Information Contact:

(press @ odiogo.com)

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Odiogo"s Web 2.0 Service Enables The Popular Politico Website To Be "Listened To" On Mobile Phones, iPods And Computers.