A few years ago, the SZ added audio content to its journalistic offering. You may already be familiar with our podcasts and audio documentation. There is now a new function with which almost every article can be read out and thus become audible.
This is made possible by a computer-generated voice. These Text-to-speech technology is developing rapidly – the voices get better and better, the sound more and more natural. This development ultimately convinced us to have our texts set to music with such a computer voice.
In order to try out the function, you only have to press the symbol for play with the note “Listen” in the area of the article functions under the preamble.
The player for the reading function.
(Photo: sz)
The function is initially freely available to all users. If you want to listen to a text that can only be read with a subscription, the voice prompts you to log in with your details or to take out a subscription so that the entire text can be heard.
At the start, only the most recent articles are available for reading aloud. Hundreds of texts are added every day, which can be listened to immediately after publication. Should you still come across an article that has not yet been converted, you can use the “Request dubbing” function – at regular intervals we will make the most popular articles available afterwards.
Function “request dubbing”
(Photo: sz)
When we in product development were thinking about the new application a few months ago together with colleagues from editorial, software development and design, it quickly became clear that this function could only be the first step for the website. That is why we built the playback function ourselves and can expand and change it at any time. A few additional functions as well as integration into other products such as our apps are already being planned.
Tell us your opinion, if you have heard a text for more than 60 seconds, the player will be able to provide feedback.
(Photo: SZ)
So that we can improve the function even further, you have the option of answering a few questions under “Tell us your opinion” directly on the audio player. Please tell us what you like and what bothers you. We are looking forward to your feedback.