Listen to the best articles on the Internet.
Start new thread
Chris Messina

Listle - Daily news and top stories, turned into podcasts

by
Raycast
•
Listle lets people save time and enjoy content on-the-go. Instead of sitting in front of your computer reading your favorite blogs, you can listen to them while you commute, run or cook. All audio articles on Listle are read by humans.

Add a comment

Replies

Best
Alex Daish
Are you paying publishers for the content? Are you redistributing users subscriptions back to the people who wrote/published the original articles?
Radu Mazilu
Maker
Hi! Indeed, that is the plan. We are currently in a beta version, developing the apps and trying to understand how to best curate articles, so that all parties are involved in a fair way (in particular narrators and authors). Some authors with audio articles on Listle actually narrated their own content. Others wanted to have third party narrators. To specifically answer your question -- yes, we are trying to work out a model such that once we do make revenue, we have a model in place to share it with the content creators (both authors and narrators), ideally based on the engagement (i.e. number of listenings) the audio content creates on Listle.
Mike Kennedy
Really love this concept. Love the idea of a marketplace for narrators too. On the Requests feature, how are you handling articles that are behind a paywall? Also, have you given any thought to offering a paid service to publishers? Listle becomes a widget in the publisher's CMS and every story comes with a narration (by someone on their staff). The value prop of helping pubs keep their "readers" by turning them into "listeners" on the go seems compelling. Great stuff!
Usama Khalid
Nice product! looks to be alternative for Blogcast. I'm personally not a fan of computer generated voices but your model seems to be working good. Just an idea for experimentation! Can you guys make the speaking speed 'dynamic' according to the text? i think that will give more human touch in final output. Good work btw!
Radu Mazilu
Maker
Hi @usama_khalid! Actually, all the audio articles you can discover in the app are human read. New narrators are contributing every day. We also don't think robotic voices have reached the necessary quality for a decent listening experience, particularly because they are sometime very monotone. We use AI only when a user wants to listen to a particular article on the web, and can't find it in the app (i.e. the request feature in the My Library screen of the mobile app).
Sterner
This is great. We need more initiatives like this. Computer synthesized voices just make my ears bleed, but there is so much content out there there's always a shortage of groups and people creating audio versions.
Radu Mazilu
Maker
@mikesterner_ Agreed! Listle is releasing new audio versions of interesting articles every day. We'd love to know if you think there's any type of article that you'd like to see narrated on Listle!
Minh Thành
Nice idea. I just wondering how can you plan for scale in op? Maybe using your sample voice to train AI later. You know, we can’t escape from them!
Radu Mazilu
Maker
@minhthanh Training a better AI is not specifically our goal. However, we are aware at some point AI may be extremely good at narrating and considering that potential future. With regards to scaling, we would like to allow any native speaker to become a narrator, especially as Listle will become available in other languages.
Priyanshu Chhazed
Love the idea! I have struggled with robotic-voice-narrated articles for a long time. This is good news! I was wondering how you manage articles that are originally behind a paywall/paid-subscription on the website that originally published it. Would a free user at Listle get access to them? And if not, then what would the experience be like for them? Also, is narrating an article open to the crowd - for instance could I submit an entry, or how does one onboard as a narrator on Listle?
Radu Mazilu
Maker
@_pric_ Hey! Sorry for the late reply. For articles that are behind a paywall, we are working to allow only users with an account on that publication's website to be able to hear the particular recording. We see Listle as a service that is complementary to reading -- a new way of consuming articles on the go. We are not trying to make paid articles available for free, but rather enable people to listen to the articles they would normally want to read but don't have time to. With regards to narrating -- the on-boarding process is more hands-on at the moment, as we still need to develop functionalities on the narrator side. Feel free to email founders@listle.io if you'd like to find our more.
Tony Hackett
I use Listle every day. The variety, timeliness and breadth of content is terrific and the consistent high quality of audio is a credit to the team. If you haven't tried it, you should give it a go!
First
Previous
12