Idea: interactive audio book platform for mobile
I’d like to “scratch my own itch” and build an interactive audiobook platform, ideally using something like Azure neural speech synthesis to narrate the stories, and allow the consumer to interact with choices via their voice or onscreen buttons.
This would be a blend of the Choose Your Own Adventure stories of yesteryear and audiobooks from today, and if it “feels good” I think it’d fit well into the existing audiobook and podcast niche for commuters.
In a perfect world with critical mass I could provide the app free of charge and stories would be outsourced (I’m not a great writer!) and revenue would be generated through audio ads or unobtrusive video ads presented just after a choice was made, while the consumer is on a “cliffhanger” of sorts.
Anyway, this is a fun idea I’ve been kicking around for a bit and I’d like to hear other makers thoughts on it. I believe it wouldn’t be a large project (probably could whip something up in just a few weeks of dedicated side hustle!) and am curious of y‘all’s reception and thoughts. 😊
Thanks for reading!
If I had more time and energy I'd work on the same idea using some form of WaveNet speech synthesis.
I did actually do a single interactive book reading for kids who are just learning how to read which is available at https://sharpkids.online/reader.html but it's using the primitive speech synthesizer which common browsers include...
Oh that WaveNet stuff sounds so good! It looks like there isn’t an API to use for it though, and I wasn’t looking to get into speech synthesis as it were. Do you know of a way to incorporate that easily into an app, similar to how you’d bake in Azure’s TTS APIs?
Thanks!
The big G certainly seems to use WaveNet in its Cloud Text-to-Speech API so that might be an alternative to Azure. The demo has six different voices...
Ah so it does! Sorry I missed that and headed straight into tacotron research. Thanks for your help!
Not sure if I can change your mind, but Google home has something like that. It was cool. I made it to the end of it and it can be started with a voice command. You can probably mimic it really quickly with something like voiceflow.
Thanks for replying! I just did a quick google and it does look like there's some cool apps for Google Home (and likely Alexa!) that would scratch this itch. I couldn't find anything on mobile to listen to (and interact with) while commuting, and can't seem to find a way to utilize Google Home/Alexa apps directly on my smart phone. If that's true, maybe this would still be a net-new offering?
Also, you started with "Not sure if I can change your mind,", do you think this idea isn't worth pursuing?
Again, thanks for your input!
Well, I honestly meant possibly convince you to develop for a different platform. I don't want to stop you from pursing it. The reason why I specifically wouldn't develop an application for the phone vs home is because the home environment is usually more predictable. Voice apps in a car or a home is usually a more quiet environment. Practically in a car interactive voice apps could be an issue. Too many distractions while driving could be problematic while on the road. Also if I'm going to someplace I'm unfamiliar with it will have to compete with the gps. What environments do you intend on doing it in? I can see the car thing working as long as it's safe. I could see it being cool on a road trip when you can't do much as the driver.
Not much to add, but I do think we'll see a rise in choose-your-own-adventure as more media becomes 'internet-first' (I'd also like to be able to choose cameras when watching sports).
My one recommendation is not to charge for it. Patreon seems to be a better alternative, and it's effectively a non-technical project with Alexa et al.
Thanks for your input! I agree. I think the consumers would need to be able to get started with no cost for the platform to be at all possibly viable
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Thanks for the feedback! Yeah I’ve seen the text ones but you can’t use them while driving 👎 So that’s where this idea is coming from. Costs would be relatively low as well - cost of a CDN to host the media files and likely a text file detailing the stories and metadata for each one, and a one-time fee for each story (outsourced) and another fee for conversion (at least to start and keep costs down would be Azure or some other TTS service, maybe later could be professionally narrated if people wanted it).
Your input is making me optimistic. Thanks!