This article was published on July 8, 2009

AudioBoo and Spinvox turn your Podcasts into text automatically


AudioBoo and Spinvox turn your Podcasts into text automatically

audiobooInstant podcasting service AudioBoo has teamed up with speech-to-text specialist Spinvox to launch an exciting new feature. Very soon it will be possible to automatically convert the podcasts you record with AudioBoo into text.

The potential for this is enormous. Anyone wanting to make their podcasts available as blog posts will love this feature as the entire process will be automatic. Then there’s the extra ‘Google Juice’ it will give your recordings. Search engines don’t (yet) index audio to make it searchable. Having a text version of a recording online will mean many more people are likely to find it. Also, journalists will love the fact they won’t have to transcribe their AudioBoo interviews for print any more.

The integration between AudioBoo and Spinvox will soon be available to third party developers too, using both companies’ APIs. Quoted by Spinvox, AudioBoo CEO Mark Rock says:

“With the Audioboo API, any developer will be able to build their own mobile and web applications to record to Audioboo and SpinVox integration will be an important addition to that which we can deliver simply and quickly through the SpinVox API.”

As exciting as this news is, it’s worth noting a word of caution. Spinvox, while reliable at speech-to-text conversion most of the time, does occasionally offer up some inaccurate conversions. If you use the service it will be worth checking over any text it creates for you. Otherwise that “interview with Stephen Fry” might become an “inner view of Stephen Fry”, something that surely no-one would want.

For more on AudioBoo, see our Guide to Mobile Podcasting.

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