A few weeks ago, Cincinnati Magazine called to interview us about our "new media" service that turns text into mobile audio. The progressive monthly publication draws over 300,000 readers and visitors to its website.
The story below, which we've already pinned to the office wall, is in their October issue:
Now Hear This
Let PimpMyNews trawl the Web for your news - and read it to you.
By Chuck Sambuchino.
TO ALL YOU DESK JOCKEYS who waste the company dime, by clicking through endless streams of Web-based info-tainment, ad nauseam: PimpMyNews.com could save your job. The brainchild of John Atkinson, a dot-com journeyman and UC grad who conceived the idea with his friend and tech consultant, Roy Georgia, at a hotel bar two years ago, the site provides a simple, brilliant service: It translates text from more than 1,200 news hubs, entertainment sites, and blogs into computer-generated speech (think “Fitter Happier” by Radiohead, only happier) that can be downloaded onto your computer, iWhatever, or MP3 player for you to listen to later.
“Over the years, I’ve been traveling like a road warrior, so I couldn’t keep up with newspapers,” says Atkinson, who now lives in Cincinnati. “I kept thinking that there had to be a better way than being tied to a computer all day for news.” PMN got its first significant boost when Apple chose it as a “staff pick” in January 2008. Since then, they’ve attracted 80,000 regular users.
“PimpMyNews opens a whole new world of content to everyone,” Atkinson says, “and it’s a great opportunity for productivity enhancement.”
Which makes us wonder: Are you reading this online?
