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]

Talking iPhone Web Application Unveiled at Macworld, Receives Apple's Prestigious "Staff Pick" Designation

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 16, 2008

New iPhone Web App Instantly Converts the Web’s Top Text News and Blogs to Audio -Allowing Users to Get Current & Multitask While Listening On-the-go

San Francisco, Calif. – January 16, 2008 – Web 2.0 startup PimpMyNews.com announced today at Macworld the debut of the world’s first “talking social news application” designed specifically for iPhones and iPod touch devices.

The application has received Apple’s prestigious “Staff Pick” designation and can now be accessed from any iPhone or iPod touch at www.PimpMyNews.com/m or through Apple’s web app directory.

The PimpMyNews web app features key functionality from the PimpMyNews full site, which launched in December at http://www.pimpmynews.com/. The web app scours the Internet for breaking text stories from the most popular news and blog sites and converts them to near-human sounding audio that users of iPhones, iPod touch devices and other mobile devices can listen to wherever they happen to be. Users can also share audio versions of stories with friends, or post them to other social sites including Facebook, Digg, Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Mixx and more.

Since the December launch of the core PimpMyNews offering, the company reports that visitors from 99 countries have flocked to http://www.pimpmynews.com/ to listen to audio versions of breaking news stories from the web’s top 1,000 text news and blog sites on their computers, iPhones, iPods, Zunes and other devices.

PimpMyNews users who sign up for the free service on the main site can create a “personalized talking newspaper” by selecting their favorite text news and blog sources from 59 unique categories, including Technology, Entertainment, Sports, Politics, Colleges, Business and more. Users can listen online or on-the-go by creating a personalized news podcast that is continuously updated with fresh content from their favorite sources. The site has over 200,000 talking stories online, adds more than 4,000 new stories per day and was recently selected as “The Cool Site of the Day”.

“We’re excited to provide yet another option that empowers people to get current on their favorite news and blogs by listening to them anytime, anywhere. Being selected as a “Staff Pick” by Apple is further validation that PimpMyNews provides meaningful value to users everywhere,” said PimpMyNews Co-Founder & CEO John Atkinson

PimpMyNews will be demonstrating the new iPhone web app at Macworld in San Francisco this week. Members of the press can schedule a demo by emailing Press@PimpMyNews.com

About PimpMyNews
PimpMyNews scours the web 24/7 for text news and blog posts that you like and converts them to MP3’s that you listen to (vs. R-E-A-D) on your iPod, iPhone or PC – anytime, anywhere!

- Stay current on the news and blogs you care about
- Save time – your favorite stories come to you
- Listen online or on-the-go – in the car, at the gym – anywhere
- Express Yourself – share and rate stories, create playlists and more

###

Media Contact: Press@PimpMyNews.com

PimpMyNews Picked as Today's "Cool Site Of The Day"

We love it when others help us spread the news about PimpMyNews, and we're very thankful for the press, fellow bloggers, "Twitterers" and "Diggers" who have been spreading the word since we launched a few weeks ago.

Last week, the folks over at "Cool Site of the Day" contacted us to let us know that PimpMyNews had been chosen as their "Cool Site of the Day" for today (Monday, January 7th, 2008). After Googling them and seeing praise about them from Yahoo and New York times, our excitement grew.

- Yahoo says they're "the original and still the best."

- New York Times calls them "the arbiter of good taste on the Internet."

Then Panic Set in...
We asked ourselves, "What if 'Cool Site' brought an avalanche of millions of people with click-happy fingers to our site today? Could our tireless, "near-human sounding robots" fetch and read the news fast enough?

As I write this blog post at 7:36 pm eastern, I'm happy to say that our traffic has more than tripled, and we haven't heard a single complaint from our "robo news team."

I suppose as long as we continue to treat them humanely and provide a rewarding upward career path for them, the "PimpMyNews machine" will continue to run like a top. (Fingers crossed, of course ;)

Please cast your vote for PimpMyNews at "Cool Site of the Day"

On a side note - keep sending your feedback to Suggestions@PimpMyNews.com - and share a talking PimpMyNews story to your mother-in-law.

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!

News Release: Talking Social News Website Puts You in Control of News and Blogs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 12, 2007

Talking Social News Website Puts You in Control of News and Blogs

Convergence of Web 2.0 and Social Media Technology Lets Anyone with Internet Access or an MP3 Player Listen to Text News Online or On-The-Go

OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. Web 2.0 startup PimpMyNews today announced the availability of the world’s first “talking social news site” at http://www.pimpmynews.com/ PimpMyNews is a free service that allows anyone with Internet access or an MP3 player to listen to thousands of breaking text news and blog stories that they would otherwise have to read.

Throughout the day, the site’s proprietary software scours the Internet for breaking text news and blog stories matching each user’s preferences, The site then converts text content to near-human sounding audio in real time, using text-to-speech technology similar to technology used in talking GPS navigation systems.

During the sign up process, users select their favorite topics from hundreds of text-based news and blog publishers to create a “personalized talking newspaper.” For deep personalization, users can choose content from fifty-seven unique categories, including Technology, Entertainment, Sports, Politics, Colleges, Business and more.

Users with iPods, iPhones, Zunes and other MP3 players automatically receive fresh content matching their preferences every morning for listening on the go, whenever and wherever they desire - allowing users to stay current on their favorite news and blogs without being at a computer. The company believes this feature will appeal to people with active lifestyles and commuters.

The site also includes rich social media tools for users to rate, share and participate in the distribution of news and blog stories. With a single click, users can email audio versions of stories to friends, or post them to Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Mixx, and other social sites.

“The idea grew out of a need that a group of friends had, which we believe millions share. We needed a way to stay current on the news and blogs we care about and a way to share interesting stories with the world with minimal effort. PimpMyNews puts consumers in control and lets them listen to breaking text news on their terms. Publishers of text news and blogs now also have the ability to augment their reader base with listeners,” said PimpMyNews Co-Founder John Atkinson.

About PimpMyNews

PimpMyNews scours the web 24/7 for text news and blog posts that you like and converts them to MP3’s that you listen to (vs. R-E-A-D) on your iPod, iPhone or PC, anytime, anywhere!

- Stay current on the news and blogs you care about.
- Save time - your favorite stories come to you
- Listen online or on-the-go - in the car, at the gym - anywhere
- Express Yourself - share and rate stories, create playlists and more

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Media Contact: Press@PimpMyNews.com