Are you tired of reading and more reading? You can for sure find relief by stop reading and take rest. And listen to the content you would have normally read. There are number of free web services that can read out your favorite blogs, wikipedia articles, RSS feed content and much more.
Besides online reading, you can download audio of the text content in mp3 format. You can listen to this audio on your mobile phone or mp3 player. Possibilities and alternatives are many – you only need to identify, which one works best for you.
Here is cool list of 5 free web services to convert text into speech and further download and save in Mp3 format and much more.
1. YakiToMe – It allows you to convert text files into Mp3 or Wav audio files which can downloaded in mp3 format. Using this free web service you can listen to work documents, homework, PowerPoint presentations, emails, RSS feeds, blogs and novels. It can speak multiple languages like English, Spanish, French, German.
2. SpokenText – [Read More] It allows you to record PDF, Word, plain text, PowerPoint files, ,RSS news feeds, emails and web pages, and converts them to speech automatically. You can download your recording as an iPod book or mp3 file. Every member gets a personal podcast URL , which you can use to download recordings to iTunes or your iPod.Â
3. PedioPhon – It is a free Text-To-Speech Converter for Wikipedia articles. It can read out Wikipedia articles to you while you perform your daily chores. Besides streaming audio you can also download the audio recording for easy playback on your mp3 player or mobile phone. No registration or installation required and very easy to use.
4. BlogBard – [Read More] If you are tired of reading RSS feed content, then BlogBard is the alternative you need. With BlogBard you can turn any news/feed to a personalized radio. You can integrate it with your blog using a widget. It also offer integration with Google Reader and Bloglines.
5. ReadTheWords – Another free web based alternative to convert text into speeach. It allows you to listen to your Reading Online, download mp3 to your Ipod, post Your Reading in Website or Blog and turn Your Reading into a Podcast. Lot of options to play around with your text in audio format.
So, which one worked best for you? Or Are you hooked to any other similar web service? Share with us by adding a comment. [Photo by Wackocatho]
Why would these sites be used instead of a free program like D-Speech?
Thanks for the list.
I have some experiences with text to speech software programs, I am now using Panopreter (panopreter.com). When I have a long story to read online, I always enable panorpeter toolbar, so I can listen to the vocal speech to avoid eyestrain.
Thanks for the list. Yakitome is the best!
I just checked out the various sites you listed and all of them charge money now except for the YAKiToMe! site which still seems to be free. Free is good.
Nice list Davinder – by and large, services like these simply weren’t there a few years ago.
I’d like to bring your attention to VoiceForge (http://www.voiceforge.com) – an online TTS service from Cepstral. What makes them different is they have 50 voices. As well, Cepstral actually owns the engine and creates the voices which gives them a lot of latitude to serve diverse customer needs. A bit more enterprise then your other examples, but well worth listening!
Thank You Davinder for providing this list. I was searching for the same since last 1 week and I reached your webpage by luck and I am really grateful for sharing these websites.
Wonderful list. They are best to use in podcast and also good to integrate in blog posts. I’ll try them dude. Thanks
Sorry, I forgot to mention that YAKiToMe! was the only site that let you control pronunciation, too. All the sites have read-back speed control.
Really good list, thanks. I would agree with the order in which you list the sites. YAKiToMe! was the best, by far, with the most high quality voices, support for text to speech in more languages, and much more functionality than the other sites. The YAKiToMe! site was really fast and has an extensive public library that I was able to search through and listen to, with loads of RSS feeds, like Engagdget, Readwriteweb, Reuters, and other feeds. I really like the fact that YAKiToMe! keeps the feeds up to date automatically. The group feature is really nice because it gives me another way to organize my personal content. And the web2.0 features are pretty standard, but something the other sites don’t support at all. Thanks for pointing me to the sites and hope this personal review was useful to you.
@HD-Productions.biz Glad you liked it!
Hi Davinder,
I liked http://readthewords.com/ site you listed as you can alter the voice and have a male or female character read it back on the front page.
Really good, this is very similar to the speech text function on the Apple mac and I have an automator/applescript function that converts text to mp3 audio.
Great it’s also available online, a great web2.0 find.
http://www.hd-productions.biz
Davinder thanks for this list, I’ll try each of the options out. The more free services listed the better the chance to be able test them for quality. This is great for podcasts and audio content creation. I wonder if all offer a high definition of clear audio quality and can the audio voice be customised or altered to be male or female.
Again thank Davinder for your list.