Warning, Will Robinson...Audio for Your Blog?

OK, so the "near-human quality" voice of this service does not sounds exactly like the robot from "Lost In Space", but it still lacks a certain warm and fuzzy feeling.

What the heck am I talking, er, writing about? It's a service called Odiogo and it converts text to speech in mp3 files that can then be downloaded to a computer or iPod. This service is currently free and they seem to be trying to attract bloggers in particular to subscribe and offer the option of listening to blog posts directly on site or having readers subscribe to a podcast so that they can download the files and listen to them on the go.

Check out the blog, The Red Ferret Journal, as an example.

I think the concept is very cool, although I have yet to be organized enough to do the whole podcast thing by hooking up my iPod daily and then listening to the automatic feeds that I have selected. But I know there is a huge market of extremely tech savvy folks out there, including teens and college aged kids who might prefer listening to material vs. reading it. And of course, there are simply those people who learn and retain more information from listening to the spoken word.

Will I sign up and feature this on The Business Blog? Well, seeing as how the correct pronunciation of the service is "oh-dee-oh-go" and the mechanical, near-human voice pronounces it "ah-dee-oh-go", I'm a bit skeptical. The jury is still out. Let me know what you think.