Have Your News and Tweets Read to You by Vocalyze

Trisha Cruz September 1, 2011 Tweet

Nobody – and I mean nobody – likes the weary headache of finding themselves stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Lucky for us, newly-launched Vocalyze Media aims to make the commute a little easier to get through. The mobile news and entertainment service turns tweets, blogs, RSS feeds and other written web content into real-time audio podcasts, so you can listen to your favorite content and social media on-the-go.

Instead of being tied to reading on a screen, Vocalyze streams audio of news stories, tweets, and other online text in a continuous, customizable app. It’s like having a personal news radio station that lets you create different playlists customized to your liking (my personal favorites would probably include The New York Times, People Magazine, @StephenAtHome, and of course, @TechCocktail). The web service also makes it easy to share your custom radio program with family and friends.

Vocalyze is already gaining recognition – last night, they won the pitch showdown at UltraLightStartup.

The best part? You don’t have to do anything to keep the news up-to-date. That means that if your friend clicks the link to your Vocalyze stream a week, a month, or even a year later, the link will still read the latest news from those sources. Frank Qui, Vocalyze Media CEO, had this to say:

“Vocalyze helps people to be more productive. During our beta period we have seen the average user spend 37 minutes per visit listening to content they wouldn’t have otherwise read or known about.”

Although users will be familiar with the robotic audio that usually comes with a text-to-speech application, the thing that differentiates Vocalyze from other mobile audio applications is that  it isn’t limited to pre-recorded audio content. The service can really read any text content a listener chooses to follow from virtually any source on the Internet. Vocalyze even offers a free WordPress widget that bloggers can download to “Vocalyze” their site to streaming audio.

In the near future, the company plans to bring their patent-pending technology to organizations that serve the visually impaired community. Right now, most products designed for this audience are computer-based, so Vocalyze’s mobile approach opens up a whole new range of devices and applications.

Whether you’re a multi-tasker wanting to free up your hands or just looking to liven up your morning commute, Vocalyze is an easy and innovative way to listen your social media and web content no matter where you are. The free Vocalyze app is available for download now for iOS and Android.

The Vocalyze team will be at our Tech Cocktail Boston event tonight, so make sure to swing by and see the app in action. The service has already been predicted to become the “Spotify for the news set,” so you don’t want to miss out.

Learn more about Vocalyze Media here.