Show HN: Convert blog articles to high-quality audio(websitevoice.com) |
Show HN: Convert blog articles to high-quality audio(websitevoice.com) |
As a developer I wanted to build something like this and it looks easy(without AI part). But following the startup gurus and podcasts I figured that idea should be validated first and to find actual customers is more important than building technology. Here started troubles. I have no skills in marketing and when diving deeper it looked cumbersome for me. I spend free credits on AdSense but it only brought 8 emails for empty newsletter.
I'm interested did you do the research on user base? What would be a market for this?
Where are you planning to grow the site? Do you have monetization plan?
p.s. found a link in comments for read2me.online, and just from demo they sound really good for ears
So the questions: Who are you? and How are you doing this for free?
Thank you,
The domain is namecheap, no more info. And the HN user tiburon is a new account.
There are 4 trackers on the site. Besides GTM (mentioned in PP) there is twitter-ads.
Do you have more info, tiburon?
And yet today, I consider the provenance of a product to be more or less my No. 1 consideration in whether I will use it or not.
We live in a world where brands and products are established, then monetized and eventually their userbase becomes just a trading chip that passes from hand to hand. We're giving access or money or trusting systems and we really have no control over the transfer of that trust, data or money.
So unfortunately now, yes it really matters a lot. You're asking me to add code to a website of mine: I want your address, your email, your phone number...I need to know who you really are.
Many people indeed do not care, and just use any cool service they encounter (and yours is cool, don't get me wrong).
An increasing body of people (including me) is more wary of just using any stuff that is out there on Wild West internet. And for good reasons.
In your comment you provide information that would be very valuable to have on your site.
E.g. 'I am a passionate developer and intend to provide Premium services eventually. The basic services you find here will continue to be free.'
(On the browser side, I am aware that various browsers have speech controls hooked up, most commonly inside a Reader Mode—to say nothing of screen readers, which have a different target market. There’s also the Web Speech API which could be used to replicate WebsiteVoice’s functionality using whatever voices are offered by the user’s device. Its quality will be heavily platform-dependent.)
(However, I must say that audiobooks go splendidly with manual work that doesn't require much thinking.)
At small breakpoints, the UI (especially the "try it now" button) can overlap some text. Sizing also seems off.
Another issue I noticed is the play button itself, the entire circle area is clickable, however only the play/pause icon can actually be clicked.
There are also numerous accessibility issues. If you're going to advertise this as something to improve accessibility, it might be good to actually concentrate on that for your landing page.
I do hope the UI can be improved, as the product looks solid.
if the solution does not appeal to you, it surely appeals to others.
I would wish to be able to customise the play button though.
Looking forward to seeing new developments and also the pricing plan eventually.
1: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/speakab...
Please use better compression settings.
https://www.folj.com/lateral-solutions/
Apparently my javascript doesn't play nicely with programmatically injected elements. The Show All Solutions button still works.
I'm not sure if maybe the content of the copy is a little clunky or if it's the voice itself, but that section sounded worse than the other ones, IMO. If possible, I would think about toying with that. The girl's voice in the "Voice Pitch and Speed Control" section sounded far more natural and impressive.
Also, is there somewhere that the following is documented?
- Required origins for each type of content so that this can be compatible with a Content-Security-Policy
- Required use of browser features so that this can be made compatible with a Feature-Policy
- Commitments from yourself that the lists of required origins/features will not be added to without prior notice, in order to give time for blog operators to update their headers accordingly
Thanks
Sometimes I can listen, but not read (driving). Sometimes, I can read but not listen (work, or just when I’m without headphones). I realize they want high quality voice, but if at the moment all they have is text that’s ok with me. Not having both of these often means I just skip that article and never come back to it
Super useful for learning Spanish.
Also noteworthy is the official Amazon Polly for WordPress plugin - https://wordpress.org/plugins/amazon-polly/
I wonder how OP missed this? Audio quality has to be flawless when using headphones for extended times. It's not like you need a lot of bits for audio, so it's not something you save on.
Please fix!
I would delete my comments if I were you because you look like a jerk mentioning it 3 times in a post with 8 comments total. And it's not even true.
Add a text input box so that prospective users can try it themselves.
Recommendation, add the plugin to your own homepage for potential users to test it out before having to signup.
there is a demo button here on this page where you enable your website. You can even test the feature without signup.
Very impressed with the audio quality. What's the revenue model?
To me it sounds not much better than Google's standard wavenet TTS (seen here: https://cloud.google.com/text-to-speech/) which is admittedly pretty state of the art but nowhere as good as actual human dictation.
I assume you'll have the business side well thought out too. My feedback would be to be as transparent as possible, once adding commercial services, and turn that into a true USP.