Is Voice the New "Killer App" for Mobile ?

Back when text-to-speech voice quality was "unlistenable," and before the explosion of mobile devices, TTS seemed to be a technology looking for a market beyond applications for the visually impaired.

Now that nearly everyone has a mobile device, and we're all looking to multitask on the go, it looks like voice could become the killer app for mobile.

Today, Apple announced a new talking iPod Shuffle. Instead of including a display on the new shuffle, Apple added a feature called "Voice Over", which reads the artist and song name aloud to you. A couple of weeks ago, Amazon launched the Kindle 2, which includes a text-to-speech feature that drew a ruckus from the overly sensitive Author's Guild.

Voice-to-text technology is also on the rise. Mobile services like SpinVox, Google Voice, Cha Cha, and many others have been coming out of the woodwork lately, allowing you to speak into your phone and receive transcribed text messages.

The talking iPod, the vocal Kindle, and these other cool voice-enabled services, seem to further validate the relevance of our mobile talking news & blog service.

Reading your blogs and driving don't mix... but listening? Now there's a benefit!

What's next? A talking toaster? Probably.

New PimpMyNews iPhone App, Watch The Demo

As we mentioned in a recent blog post, the new native iPhone & iPod touch app is here!

If you've used the iPhone web app, you'll love the feature-rich speed of the new native application. If you've never used PimpMyNews on your iPhone, now is the time!

Check out the brief demo below, then head on over to The App Store to download the new application. [Tap here to watch the iPhone version]



Please let us know what you think, by sending your feedback to Suggestions@PimpMyNews.com

PimpMyNews Launches New iPhone, iPod touch App!

After several weeks of coding, we're excited to announce the availability of our new native iPhone and iPod touch application!

Our goal is to continually enhance our service, to give you instant access to the content you care about, when you want it, and how you want it.

The new mobile app takes advantage of the advanced features of the iPhone SDK, to offer a faster, feature-rich user experience, making it even easier to keep up with your news on-the-go.

Here's a list of some of the new application's cool functionality:
>Real-time text-to-voice conversion
>View each story's text, pictures and video
>Stream your daily podcast
>Share stories on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and other social sites
>Visit the source of each story

Our friends at The Inquisitr and JAIB seem to like the application. Be sure to swing over to their sites to see what they have to say.

>You can download the new app on The App Store for $3.99.

Please check it out, and tell us what you think at: Suggestions@PimpMyNews.com

Thanks for listening with PimpMyNews, and please tell your friends about the new application!

John & Roy, Co founders

PimpMyNews Makes TechZulu's Best of 2008!

Techzulu is a great new resource to learn about hot new startups in the technology and media fields. In 2008, they made a name for themselves with lively onsite interviews of dozens of startups at popular conferences like BlogWorld, CES, and many others.

We were pleased to learn that Amanda Coolong's interview of us at BlogWorld Expo 2008 made TechZulu's "Best of 2008." [Watch the iPhone version here ]

Be sure to visit TechZulu to watch the rest of their Top 2008 interviews in the blog post titled "Here's To Ringing Out 2008."

We would like to thank all of our loyal PimpMyNews users for a great 2008! Have a great New Year!

Vote For Us In Mashable's Open Web Awards!

Mashable's Open Web Awards honors the top achievements of Web technology startups.

And, Cincinnati is rockin' Web 2.0 in a major way, with great companies like ShareThis, Zipscene, Photrade, and of course yours truly, PimpMyNews.

Please vote for PimpMyNews in the "mobile applications" category. Thanks for your support!

TechZulu Interviews PimpMyNews CEO, John Atkinson

Efren Toscano, CEO of TechZulu calls PimpMyNews, "One of the most useful companies for the business person on the go to come out of BlogWorld Expo."

In the video interview below at BlogWorld Expo in Las Vegas, TechZulu's Amanda Coolong talks with PimpMyNews CEO, John Atkinson, about the benefits consumers and publishers are receiving from this unique service.

[Watch it on your iPhone - Click Here]

Be sure to visit www.TechZulu.com to see interviews with the likes of Robert Scoble, Mark Cuban, Jason Calacanis and other leaders in the technology and media industry.

PimpMyNews User Spotlight: Damien Howley

We love getting feedback from you, our valued users. We especially love hearing about how you are using our service, and the benefits you're receiving. In this post, we share the feedback we received from one of our power users, Damien Howley.

Damien, a prolific blogger, and a graphic designer for MindTouch, had this to say:

"Upon first being introduced to PimpMyNews, I thought, "nifty, I can listen to blogs on my walk to work." However, I quickly found my whole consumption of blogs and news change drastically.

While at work, I used to listen to music, now I use your web interface [at http://www.pimpmynews.com/ ], and can catch up on all my blog posts while I work.

This has increased my ability to read more blogs, and keeps me extremely more informed than all of my co-workers. Bottom line is, PimpMyNews has saved me hours and hours each night of reading blogs."

Damien also gave us some great suggestions for new features, which we are evaluating.

How are YOU using PimpMyNews and what benefits are you seeing?

Shoot us an email at Suggestions@PimpMyNews.com today.

We would love to hear from you.