Instant Podcasts Without Saying a Word
by: Sharon Housley

Instant Content; Converting a Text Article to a Podcast

We are taught to recycle paper, cans, bottles and plastic but marketers rarely discuss the value of repackaging and repurposing content. Publishers and marketers alike have embraced content syndication and RSS but few have considered the value beyond the actual syndication. Consider an alternative communication channel that reaches a new or different audience.

Repurposing and repackaging content or information so that it can be consumed through a variety of mediums is not a new concept. Many businesses today sight increased communication as a common goal. Cost conscious businesses with tight budges are often interested in minimizing work loads and cost, while increasing communication. By presenting the same information in different ways and formats, businesses are able to increase the reach and communication, while remaining cost conscious.

Businesses quickly found that power point presentations could be converted into technical articles, or forum posts could be ported to become a basis for a list of frequently asked questions. Along a similar vein webmasters have located a new advent in repurposed content is reusing text articles by converting them into audio podcasts.

The process is surprisingly simple, I personally found the prospect of reading the articles aloud and recording them, both intimidating and time consuming, hence I opted for a simplified approach. I found that by using two simple software applications, I was able to create a podcast in minutes.

The first obstacle, the creation of the audio file was conquered using NextUp's TextAloud program. I simply pasted in the text of an article selected a "voice" and saved the file as an MP3 file. In under a minute I had an audio file containing the article.

After I had the MP3 file saved, I used FeedForAll's tutorial to create a podcast. The step by step tutorial ( http://www.feedforall.com/podcasting-tutorial.htm ) laid out 12 simple steps to constructing a podcast. I found the quality of the constructed podcasts, using synthesized speech to text, surprisingly good.

Check out the following samples: RSS Podcast - http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-podcast.xml Software Marketing Podcast http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com/smr-podcast.xml

An evaluation version of TextAloud can be found at: http://www.textaloud.com and an evaluation version of FeedForAll can be found at http://www.feedforall.com Experiment by repurposing and repacking existing content save time and money while increasing communication, distribution and exposure.

Copyright 2005 Sharon Housley

About The Author

Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for FeedForDev http://www.feedfordev.com an RSS component for developers.