Feed2Podcast

Feed2Podcast

PT over at Make tipped me off to a slick new service for turning any RSS feed into a Podcast. Basically you sign up for the service, add your text RSS feed to your account and Feed2Podcast automatically converts text entries to speech. The audio sounds a little robotic and could stand to use the AT&T Natural Voices that power TextAloud, but for free it's an impressive use of available technology. The service processes individual RSS posts as individual audio files, making it easy to listen to as much or as little of a particular site's content on your schedule. If you publish a Feed2Podcast feed, I recommend following the steps I suggest for avoiding feed hijacking, because anytime you give up control of your URL to a third party, you can put yourself at risk of losing subscribers over the long haul. I'm not sure if Feed2Podcast will extend beyond the current novelty into something viable in terms of audio quality, but the idea warrants further exploration and I'd be surprised if similar services don't start appearing in the coming months.

To see Feed2Podcast in action, subscribe to the MediaBlab text-to-speech podcast to hear articles from me as powered by Feed2Podcast:
MediaBlab Feed2Podcast or hear the full feed in their preview player.