Blind Ambition, An Unexpected Blessing For Us

A few days after going live in mid December, we received a very "special" email saying: "Thank you for creating this service, it has opened up a whole new world of content to me."

A few days later, we received a similar email. - Then, they began to pour in.

>You Ask, ...What's so "special" about someone liking the service?

>The Answer? The senders of these emails are blind.

Close your eyes for 60 seconds, and think about all of the blogs and websites you enjoy reading.. Now, imagine if you could never see again.

Learning that our technology might make sightless people's lives a little more enjoyable has spurred us to take this on as a "corporate cause."

We're now in talks with charity orgs to figure out ways to help more of the visually impaired. (There are 10 million visually impaired people in the US).

We would love to hear your thoughts and ideas on helping the visually impaired. Just comment on this post, or send your suggestions to Suggestions@PimpMyNews.com

Please stay tuned!

The Enquirer States: "Market Poised For PimpMyNews"

Writer Jeff Huggins contacted us about a week ago for a story he was working on for The Cincinnati Enquirer.

Jeff immediately grasped "the concept," and the consumer and publisher benefits that our personalized talking news solution provides. The story, titled "It's News to Me," recently ran in The Enquirer's print and online edition.

[You can read the full story on the Enquirer's website here: http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008802170394]

Below are a few excerpts from the story:

"Integrating several Web 2.0 technologies, PimpMyNews continuously scours more than 1,000 Internet sources for text news and blog posts, converting approximately 5,000 stories to a digital audio format each day. The service features about 315,000 archived talking news stories from 1,000-plus news and blog publishers.

'PimpMyNews is like TiVo for news and blogs,' explains co-founder and CEO, John Atkinson of Mason. 'Today, we have access to so many different news sources, but still everyone struggles to stay current. Our service puts consumers in control, letting them listen to breaking news on their own terms.'

Huggins then goes on to say:

"The market appears to be poised for PimpMyNews. According to research from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, nearly one in three Americans regularly get news online, and 39 percent of Internet users, or about 57 million adults, read blogs.

Additionally, a significant number of young people (13 percent), say they now get news via a cell phone, a personal digital assistant, such as a PalmPilot or Blackberry, or an iPod or other portable music player.

In the short time it has been live, PimpMyNews has enjoyed considerable critical acclaim."

>Anyone with Internet access can sign up for a free PimpMyNews Account at: http://www.pimpmynews.com/

>iPhone & iPod Touch users can access the mobile web application at: www.PimpMyNews.com/m

PimpMyNews Update and New iPhone Features!

We're excited that PimpMyNews is taking off around the world thanks to YOU (our valued users), the press and fellow bloggers, who are spreading the word about the instant benefit it provides to anyone looking for an easy way to stay current on their news and blogs.

We're now up to users from 114 countries, 1,000+ news and blog sources and 300,000+ talking stories online - and, we're adding new sources and more than 5,000 new stories every day.

When we started "this thing", we pledged that PimpMyNews would be "user-driven", and we're excited to announce that, based on your feedback, we've added even more time-saving features to PimpMyNews.

But first, for those of you who may not be familiar with PimpMyNews, here's the obligatory "elevator speech"...

Simply put, PimpMyNews makes your favorite news and blogs TALK. It scours the web's top 1,000 news and blog sites for breaking stories and instantly converts them to near-human sounding audio that you can listen to anytime, anywhere. You can listen on your Mac, PC, iPhone, iPod, or any ol' MP3 player.

With PimpMyNews, instead of being tied to a computer searching and reading, you can kick back at your computer and listen, or, you can take your content on-the-go and make the most out of your time while you drive, workout, cook and more.

We're Continually Enhancing PimpMyNews Based on Your Feedback:

>In mid December, we launched the full PimpMyNews site at PimpMyNews.com, which allows anyone to choose from the web's top news and blog sites to create a free "personalized talking newspaper."

>In mid January, we followed up with an iPhone-optimized version of PimpMyNews at Macworld, that allows you to listen to breaking stories from the web's top 30 News and Blog sites on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

>And now, we're pleased to announce a brand spankin' new "personalization" feature for iPhone and iPod Touch users... You can now log in and access your "PimpMyNews favorites playlist" on your iPhone or iPod Touch from anywhere!

To use this cool new feature, sign up on your Mac or PC at PimpMyNews.com and complete the brief Account Setup Wizard... then, login from your iPhone or iPod Touch at PimpMyNews.com/m

Plus, you can now save a PimpMyNews icon to your iPhone homescreen, so you'll be able to get to it with a single "tap" - to do this, while on PimpMyNews, just click the "plus" sign and click "Add to Home Screen."

Keep the great feedback coming to Suggestions@PimpMyNews.com, and remember to tell your friends about us!

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What They're Saying About PimpMyNews:

"It's like magic... PimpMyNews is ideal for productivity junkies who can satisfy their news and blog cravings while doing other things," says Touchtip.com. [http://tinyurl.com/3ajbkc]

"A great service for listening to your favorite news and blog sites... and sharing them," says Just Another iPhone Blog. [http://tinyurl.com/29jwol]

[About iPhone personalization] "It’s a great inclusion, and shows that the iPhone site is developing at a swift pace," says PocketPicks. [http://tinyurl.com/2sd4uu]