Listen to books and podcasts

This is the fifth of the "Reading" series

The structure of this article:

Among the readers introduced in "E-book Reading App", Palm Reading and QQ Reading Both WeChat Reading and WeChat Reading support the reading function. When it is inconvenient for users to read, they can listen to it instead. Because they all use speech engines to read out text (Text To Speech, TTS), the progress will not be disrupted when switching between watching and listening.

Speaking of voice technology, we must talk about "iFlytek", a company specializing in voice technology. The iFlytek input method they launched is famous for its powerful voice recognition capabilities, and iFlytek is also known for its powerful voice recognition capabilities. It has gained a large number of users through functions such as real-time voice dictation, conference recording transcription, and photo recognition (OCR).

"iFlytek" has also launched an App that specializes in listening to books, called——

TTS is a speech synthesis technology that can record text as long as it is text. You don't have to rely on others like listening to a real person read aloud, but the disadvantage is that the tone is artificial and very stiff. This is the case with the reading functions of Palm Reading, QQ Reading and WeChat Reading. With its own technological accumulation, users generally report that iFlytek's "book listening tool" sounds more comfortable.

Some people can’t adapt to TTS. They want to find an e-book reader with real-person audio. WeChat Reading also has real-person audio, but these contents are book reviews rather than readings of the original text. If you are looking for an e-book reader that comes with original text reading by a real person, Lazy Man Listening Book can meet the requirements.

There is a lot of audio content in Lazy Listening to Books, but the number of e-books in the bookstore is small. Although it focuses on "combining listening and reading", in fact, it is common for the two to be missing.

The audio content of Lazy Listening to Books focuses on books, but also includes talk shows, radio, folk arts, operas, etc., taking a broad and comprehensive direction. If you just want to listen to the original text read aloud and like "small but beautiful" services, you can try Ten O'clock Reading or Jingya Listening.

The content in Ten O'clock Reading is divided into three categories:

The audio content in Jingya Listening is divided into two categories, one is book reading aloud, and the other is short article reading aloud.

Some people don’t have the patience to read the original book or listen to the original text. In 2017, Qu Kai of "42 Chapters" published a record titled "Redefining Knowledge - Thoughts and Dialogues between Seven Investors and Ji Shisan", in which an investor said, "Fragmented reading" In this era, people have higher requirements for knowledge density. Apps that responded to this change include Get, Youshu and Fandengshu - they all focus on book interpretation and audio courses.

Get also comes with an e-book reader, but the original text is still read aloud using TTS.

There are many audio programs other than "books" on the Internet (of course, those popular programs were later published as books). If you want to listen to audio content in various categories, you can install a comprehensive podcast app . Comprehensive podcast apps include Himalaya FM, Dragonfly FM, Lizhi FM, Tingban (Koala FM), etc., including the Lazy Listening Book introduced earlier.

Speaking of podcasts, it is said that it has become a relatively mature industry in the United States, with many well-known podcast brands that have been operating for more than ten years. China's podcast industry is also developing rapidly. There are many professional operation teams and many independent podcasts.

Due to various restrictions, some commercial podcasts only log in to individual podcast platforms, while some independent podcasts only update on their own websites. Therefore, even if you use major platforms such as Himalaya FM, Dragonfly FM, Lizhi FM, and Tingban As for the Quan App, heavy listeners of podcasts sometimes still encounter problems with exclusive content.

In fact, Podcasts also use RSS Feed services, and we can use Feedly, Inoreader and NewsBlur to subscribe to them (see "Aggregation Reading").

However, apps such as Reeder, Unread, and Fiery Feeds lack features specifically designed for podcasts, and a general-purpose podcast subscription app is a better choice. Podcasts that come with iOS, Overcast, Castro, Pocket Casts, Agora 2, and Moon FM in the App Store are all general-purpose podcast subscription apps.

When we click the RSS link on the page of the independent podcast website, the system will launch the podcast subscription app to let us add a subscription.

Through the conversion service provided by the https://getpodcast.xyz website, podcast programs in Ximalaya FM, Dragonfly FM, Lizhi FM, Listening Partner, as well as WeChat public accounts and NetEase Cloud Music can all be converted to RSS Feed, and then use the above-mentioned podcast subscription app to listen (of course, you don’t think you can do this with paid programs).

When introducing "Alternative e-books" and apps for listening to books and podcasts, I have been struggling with a question: "Where is the boundary between the two words "book" and "reading"?" Later I I remembered that the Utopia launched a wine called "Nianhua", and Liang Wendao wrote an article called "Publishing a Wine", so I felt that I should classify listening to podcasts as "reading". Can be forgiven.

"Redefining Knowledge - Reflective Dialogue between Seven Investors and Ji Shisan" talks about two key points in content dissemination, one is density and the other is dissemination path. Liang Wendao objected fiercely to the idea of ??twisting the water and purifying it, and wrote several articles in succession to criticize it ("A Pill and an Orange Part 1", "A Pill and an Orange Part 2", "The Good Things Should Be") How many?" etc.). But on the issue of path, just look at the name "Publishing a Wine" to know how supportive he is. In fact, the "Looking at Ideal" under the Ideal Flag was planned by Liang Wendao.

Some books become popular and are made into TV series or movies. Some video and audio programs become popular, and the producers will choose to publish books. The development of the Internet has brought more choices for communication paths, and the development of science and technology has continuously lowered the threshold for multimedia creation, allowing it to be combined in various forms to meet people's diverse needs.

The title picture comes from Unsplash, thanks to the author Alireza Attari