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Congrats to FireAnt on acquisition

Ahhh, FireAnt - the little company that couldn’t just got bought by another company that couldn’t (ODEO, bought by Sonic Mountain) for $400k.

I first posted about FireAnt in April, where I pointed out that their branding was confusing, their traffic was petering out, and that not having either the old or the new player available for download was bizarre.

I revisited FireAnt a week later (expecting some updates), to receive website errors, and a sputtering, angry response from founder Josh Kinberg.

Since that time, 6 months have passed - and nothing has changed on FireAnt. No new software (still in beta, I suppose). Not even the featured channels on the front page have changed.

So - congrats to FireAnt for getting bought; it seems like the best option as the company no longer seemed to be able to execute on their own - its too bad, I was really pumped about FireAnt when I first stumbled across it. The 400k acquisition price I’m sure adequately reflects the value FireAnt brings to the table after a year of stagnation.

fireant, odeo, podcasts vlogs

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Odiogo transforms blog posts into podcasts

Odiogo is a San Fran startup that provides a quick and easy means to genete podcasts from your blog on a post by post basis. Odiogo monitors your RSS feed and converts posts to MP3 “podiocasts” using a typically Stephen Hawking-esque text-to-speech converter.

Odiogo hosts the generated MP3’s and makes them available in your posts with an unobtrusive “listen” button. Clicking it expands a nice embed player (example):

The player currently includes a pre-roll audio ad for Odiogo itself; Odiogo’s business model includes selling ads for this inventory, and their hosting of the MP3’s makes it possible to do so. You can see their business illustrated here. It also makes it possible to look at the complete back-catalog of MP3 inventory that Odiogo will accumulate over time as active inventory - as the host, Odiogo can switch out adds on podcasts of any age. Odiogo includes an element of revenue sharing, although the thresholds and percentages involved are not publicized.

Clicking the “Get this feed on your iPod/mp3 player” link takes you a hosted Odiogo page with subscription and download options:

Odiogo also includes an Odiogo Wordpress Plugin, and somewhat more cubmbersome instructions for getting Odiogo links on Blogger.

Summary

Odiogo takes your text blog and automatically creates a podcast from it. Is there a market from this? The existence of the service seems predicated on the existence of a segment of a consuming public that given the choice would rather listen to than read blog posts. Personally, its not for me; refer to my feelings on vlogging for further explanation. As to whether there’s a larger market - train commuters who want to take some blogs with them on their ipod, for instance - that remains to be seen.

That being said, I wish the Odiogo folks all the best - I’m a big proponent of automated language & media shifting services, and I like the notion of “write-once” content that automatically ports to entirely different consumption modes.

Other Coverage

1. 901AM covers the Listen Button.
2. The Red Ferret puts it to use.
3. Jumbledthoughts also points us to Odiogo competitor Talkr.
4. A Chess World points out Odiogo’s utility for the visually impaired.

advertising, blogging, mp3, odeo, odiogo, podcast revenue

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