2005-05-12
Remixing Spoken Words with Music
In this age of web services and expanding internet connectivity, remixing is taking on a new level of meaning. Small bits of information -- links, tags, images, syndicated blog entries -- travel the internet and are recombined, remixed, into new aggregates. Software is being remixed. Business models are being remixed. O'Reilly used remixes as a theme for their recent Emerging Technology conference, and they give a nice heads-up on Penguin UK's contest for remixing spoken word samples with homegrown music. Aside from the remix of two different types of audio programming, the contest highlights the combination of three businesses: Audible, iTunes, and Penguin.
Here's how the contest works: Penguin provides a large number of excerpts from each of thirty audiobooks, and it's your job to remix the spoken words with music. You upload your remixed tracks to the Penguin website where it's voted on by editors and visitors. Do visit the PenguinRemix site and browse the mixes.
(Update: Unfortunately, the contest is limited to residents of UK.)
Since I'm an Audible enthusiast and investor, I was surprised to hear about this through O'Reilly. Audible will be launching their UK store on June 15th, and the top ten tracks of the remixing contest will be available through Audible.co.uk and iTunes UK. Frankly, I think it's a stroke of genius, especially for Audible. For the last two conference calls, Audible management has been telling us how fertile the UK market might be for spoken word content. The UK is possibly second only to Norway in its digital readiness (e-commerce usage, broadband penetration, wireless usage, etc) and they are going through iPod mania. One of Audible's audiobook selections was the #5 album at iTunes UK for several weeks, and that's #5 including the music albums. So how best to tempt the masses hooked on music to get hooked on words? How about remixes which blend spoken words with music? Come this way, ladies and gentlemen, to spoken words...
Brilliant move. Time to produce my Charlie & the Chocolate Factory rap :)
Here's how the contest works: Penguin provides a large number of excerpts from each of thirty audiobooks, and it's your job to remix the spoken words with music. You upload your remixed tracks to the Penguin website where it's voted on by editors and visitors. Do visit the PenguinRemix site and browse the mixes.
(Update: Unfortunately, the contest is limited to residents of UK.)
Since I'm an Audible enthusiast and investor, I was surprised to hear about this through O'Reilly. Audible will be launching their UK store on June 15th, and the top ten tracks of the remixing contest will be available through Audible.co.uk and iTunes UK. Frankly, I think it's a stroke of genius, especially for Audible. For the last two conference calls, Audible management has been telling us how fertile the UK market might be for spoken word content. The UK is possibly second only to Norway in its digital readiness (e-commerce usage, broadband penetration, wireless usage, etc) and they are going through iPod mania. One of Audible's audiobook selections was the #5 album at iTunes UK for several weeks, and that's #5 including the music albums. So how best to tempt the masses hooked on music to get hooked on words? How about remixes which blend spoken words with music? Come this way, ladies and gentlemen, to spoken words...
Brilliant move. Time to produce my Charlie & the Chocolate Factory rap :)
