I signed the Linuxchic.net site up today for Odiogo. Odiogo “automatically generates podiocasts from textual content structured in RSS feeds. The end-result is a high-fidelity computer-generated voice file”. Swanky. Basically I sign up for free as a blogger and tell it where to find my RSS feed, it then takes my posts and converts them into audio files so they are like “mini podcasts” or what they call podiocasts. I added their Wordpress plugin to put a listen button on the top of each post and pointed it to my Odiogo feed number. I now have an RSS feed with text AND audio as well as a fancy subscription page with ready made links. There is a little ad at the start of each audio file, but hey, it is free. I was impressed with the clarity of the computer generated voice. It remains to be seen how it handles all those Web 2.0 names. Try it out and let me know what you think!

Royalty rates for webcasters have been drastically increased by a recent ruling and are due to go into effect on July 15 (retroactive to Jan 1, 2006!). If the increased rates remain unchanged, the majority of webcasters will go bankrupt and silent on this date. Internet radio needs your help!

The Internet Radio Equality Act has recently been introduced in both the House and Senate to save the Internet radio industry. Please call your senators and your representative to ask them to co-sponsor the Internet Radio Equality Act.

Click here to read more about the SaveNetRadio Coalition…

Listen below to a few public service announcements about the issue:

[audio:http://linuxchic.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/Montage_PSA_001.mp3]

[audio:http://linuxchic.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/SaveNetRadio_PSA-One_(Produced).mp3]

New audio blog post from Linuxchic! Click here to listen to it or use this fancy embedded audio player (hint: you need Flash installed to use it!): [audio:http://linuxchic.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/pbpost1.mp3]

New audio blog post from Linuxchic! Click here to listen to it or use this fancy embedded audio player (hint: you need Flash installed to use it!): [audio:http://linuxchic.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/pbpost.mp3]

New audio blog post from Linuxchic! Click here to listen to it or use this fancy embedded audio player (hint: you need Flash installed to use it!): [audio:http://linuxchic.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/pbpost4.mp3]

New audio blog post from Linuxchic! Click here to listen to it or use this fancy embedded audio player (hint: you need Flash installed to use it!): [audio:http://linuxchic.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/pbpost3.mp3]