PimpMyNews Press and "The Tivo Analogy"

Hello Everyone,

It's been a great week here at PimpMyNews. Our first news release [http://tinyurl.com/2meaxt] went out just a few days ago and visitors from 58 countries flocked to http://www.pimpmynews.com/ to listen to their favorite text news and blogs talk.

We've already received quite a bit of press coverage, which has been very positive, for the most part:

• Speech Technology Magazine did a story about us on their homepage.[http://tinyurl.com/3yov6c] It was nice to see PimpMyNews, named alongside Facebook and MySpace with the statement, "PimpMyNews also gives users the ability to consume media in a unique way."
• KillerStartups.com thinks we might be a "killer startup", saying "PimpMyNews is convenient for anyone with a long commute who doesn’t want to, or doesn’t have time to read news either in print or online. Personalized channels with handpicked feeds make it easy to customize your account to your liking, and unlike other TTS services I’ve reviewed, this one allows you to download the mp3 file so you can listen to it on your iPod, iPhone or computer" [http://tinyurl.com/2hyx4l]
• Mashable's Mark "Rizz'n" Hopkins' story on us, titled "PimpMyNews: Fun for 10 minutes", [http://tinyurl.com/23rd7p] [http://mashable.com/2007/12/12/pimpmynews-fun-for-10-minutes/] had me worried when I first saw the title, but he had some pretty positive things to say, including: PimpMyNews "comes fully-loaded with a good number of feeds you already read, and works quickly and fairly seamlessly." However, I respectfully disagree with Mark's assumption that you have to "fool the human ear into thinking it is actually human" before there's much value. In my opinion, no computerized voice will ever be able to "fool the human ear." - The human ear is just too good at detecting sound,.. which brings me to my soap box speech,...

PimpMyNews' value statement is not about "fooling the human ear."

Strangely, PimpMyNews = TIVO for Text News and Blogs.

Are you confused? Please hear me out.

If you have signed up for PimpMyNews.. Not just clicked around on the homepage, I mean actually signed up and personalized your account with your favorites, and configured your daily automatic podcast for your MP3 player, you will understand exactly what I mean when I say that PimpMyNew's value statement is very similar to TiVo's..

PimpMyNews' Value is about "setting it and forgetting it", always being current, and portability.

While you do other things, PimpMyNews scours the web all day long, grabbing your favorite text news and blogs. When you login to your account, your content is right there waiting for you to listen to it (just like "Desperate Housewives" is waiting for you to watch it with TiVo).... With PimpMyNews, there's no more surfing around to different websites hunting for news... And you can kick back and listen to a "near-human sounding" voice..instead of reading a bunch of text.

Do You Have an iPod, iPhone or some other MP3 player? If so, you can cut off your PC schackles.

Every morning, when you sync up your iPod or iPhone, you'll get fresh audio versions of your favorite text news and blogs that you can listen to while doing other things, like driving, working out, flying, putting up holiday lights and more. This "portability" factor of PimpMyNews is very powerful because you can get current on the best of the web, anytime, anywhere.

If you ask my wife, she'll tell you that I fall asleep every night with PimpMyNews playing on my iPhone, listening to Mashable, TechCrunch, Seth Godin, Wall Street Journal and, yes, I'll admit it, sometimes Perez Hilton. She will also tell you that rolling over on an iPhone really annoys her.

Please keep sending your feedback to Suggestions@PimpMyNews.com, and keep telling your friends about PimpMyNews!