If reports are to be believed, Apple will be launching a new iTunes category called Spoken Editions. This would primarily feature audio versions or digestible audio clips of written content published by major publications such as TIME, Forbes, Playboy and Wired.
The speculation first emerged after several news outfits began spotting a Spoken Editions category in their iTunes page. Links to these contents have since been pulled out but screenshots have been captured to show that it did make an appearance. The idea seems to cater to an emerging demand from users to hear news instead of reading them so that they can focus on other tasks.
Major media publishers are said to be preparing for the launch of this section. For example, TIME is said to be testing a Spoken Edition platform, which involves The Brief while WIRED is mulling two editions: one for Business and the other for Science content.
It appears that the company called SpokenLayer is a key player in the development of Spoken Editions. A number of the initial Spoken Editions contents cites the company's technology in their respective descriptions. This does not mean, however, that it is partnered or officially affiliated with Apple.
For one, there is no official word confirming the partnership. According to TechCrunch, the company could only be facilitating the transformation of content from written to audio so the process transpires more quickly, especially when Apple is already preparing to roll out Spoken Editions.
SpokenLayer still stands to gain from this new iTunes feature. It is behind the podcasts of big name publishers, including Reuters and Huffington Post. As media publishers scramble to publish Spoken Editions content, its service could experience a sharp uptick in demand.
It is not clear how SpokenLayer transforms published articles into audio clips or whether it is using a text-to-speech technology.
"We have a distributed network of voice-over talent that is tagged and managed," Will Mayo, SpokenLayer's CEO, cryptically said. "We make sure Wired sounds like Wired and any other publication sounds like those publications."
Mayo did not offer any more details, especially regarding its role in Spoken Editions.
Meanwhile, publishers seemed excited about the new developments as it could prove to be another source of revenue. As printed news includes ads, the audio clips will also include these materials in the same audio format. This can be demonstrated in the way SpokenLayer currently shares revenue with publishers for audio ads.
Apple is reportedly launching Spoken Editions in October and it could possibly augment a standalone Siri device that will be launched later on. This latter is particularly interesting because of Apple's recent acquisitions of artificial intelligence startups such as Tuplejump Software Pvt Ltd. These moves have been largely viewed as part of improving Apple's virtual assistant service.
