Wizzard Software (OTCBB: WIZD) announced today that it has entered the rapidly expanding podcasting market with a strong business strategy centered around Wizzard’s years of speech technology expertise. Wizzard will respond to daily inquiries from bloggers and online newspaper web sites, requesting a solution for automatically turning their text-based blogs and online articles into audio files for podcasts, by leveraging it with its high quality AT&T Natural Voices and IBM ViaVoice portfolio offerings.
Piitsburg, PA (PRWEB) September 22, 2006 -- Wizzard Software (OTCBB: WIZD) announced today that it has entered the rapidly expanding podcasting market with a strong business strategy centered around Wizzard’s years of speech technology expertise. Wizzard will respond to daily inquiries from bloggers and online newspaper web sites, requesting a solution for automatically turning their text-based blogs and online articles into audio files for podcasts, by leveraging it with its high quality AT&T Natural Voices and IBM ViaVoice portfolio offerings.
Wizzard’s first step of expansion includes acquiring podcast hosting service provider, Switchpod.com. Switchpod is considered by many experts to be one of the top five podcasting hosting companies in the industry. It has developed a strong “podcaster friendly” reputation and is known for offering its users unmetered bandwidth, fast speeds, detailed statistics and strong promotional and branding opportunities. Switchpod.com provides both free and premium accounts to users who create audio and video podcasts using the latest technologies.
At this time, podcasts are 80% audio and 20% video and are similar in format to a radio show or TV show. They can be played on Apple’s iPod along with most any MP3 player, Sony’s PlayStation Portable, many new cell phones and TiVo units, and can also be played online using a standard PC.
“Currently, we are broadcasting over 800,000 podcasts per month equating to over 265,000 hours of podcast programming, and we are experiencing a 20% monthly growth rate in listener downloads,” says Jake Fisher, co-founder of Switchpod. “By joining Wizzard, we now have the resources to keep up with the accelerated growth pattern we’ve experienced over the last several months and focus our efforts on delivering a stable hosting platform for our content creators while launching several new, exciting features to ensure that our Podcasters have the best possible experience.”
Today, podcasts are found in various fragmented directories based on the short description that the podcaster inputs to describe their content. In order for viewers/listeners to find podcasts that are truly interesting to them, in most cases they have to sort through many different offerings until finding something of interest. In addition to turning text-based online content into audio for podcasting purposes, Wizzard will incorporate its highly accurate, server-based speech recognition technologies into the Switchpod network. Wizzard plans to simplify the search process by allowing audio and video podcasts to be fed through its speech recognition system, creating a transcript of each podcast. This feature will give Wizzard a second competitive advantage by enabling listeners to type in key words and find relevant podcasts based on the full content of each and every podcast episode.
“This will benefit our podcast creators in several ways,” says Weina Scott, co-founder of Switchpod.com. “Once we have a transcript of each podcast on our network, our content creators can achieve greater search engine rankings, allowing more listeners to find their podcast. Additionally, this will provide sponsors and advertisers a more sophisticated means of selecting the podcast shows they feel will be the best fit for their product or service.”
Switchpod podcasters will also benefit from the new offerings by making their podcasts more accessible to sponsors and advertisers. Using Wizzard technology, Switchpod is creating a unique AdSelect system for advertisers to find relevant podcasts on the Switchpod network. With the ability to search through the actual text of all podcasts on the Switchpod Network, advertisers can find the most relevant podcasts to promote their product or service. For example, if Ford Motor Company wants to advertise in all podcasts that discuss cars, a strategic search can now be performed across the entire Switchpod network for all podcasts that discuss specific words at any place in the audio/video content archives, such as automobiles, trucks, or minivans.
This fundamental new feature gives Switchpod.com a strong competitive advantage, making it easier for Switchpod’s podcast creators to attract advertisers and sponsors who want to successfully align their brand of products and services with high-value content and a targeted audience on the Switchpod Network. Management’s research shows that listeners don’t mind advertisements to support their favorite podcasts when those ads are interesting and relevant. Premium podcasters share advertising revenue with Switchpod.com.
“Most importantly, text-to-speech (TTS) and speech recognition are absolute natural fits for podcasting. Converting audio and video into searchable, manageable text is critical to the immediate business success of podcasting,” states Chris Spencer, CEO of Wizzard Software. “Our text-to-speech technology will allow us to automatically create high volume audio podcasts and our speech recognition technology will allow us to attract more listeners and advertisers for our podcasters.”
“We’ve tried a lot of different products and service offerings for our speech technologies, and while we have had some exciting, recent success, we’ve never come across an industry where our technology and expertise can have such a direct impact on the bottom line as with podcasting,” continued Spencer. “We feel Wizzard is set to become an intrinsic leader in the exciting podcasting universe.”
Wizzard believes this new podcast service network will lead the industry by offering competitive advantages to both the podcast community, as well as becoming an attractive new medium for the advertisers and sponsors. The major speech technology feature of this network is architected utilizing the award winning Wizzard Developer’s Tools for Speech Recognition & Text-To-Speech, integrated with the latest, highly accurate speech recognition and text-to-speech technologies from world-class market leaders, AT&T and IBM.
Podcasts are quickly becoming a primary method for how people access information. According to April 2005’s PEW Internet Study, by the end of 2006 there will be over 10 million podcast users subscribing to over a million podcasts available on the Internet. Further, a July 2006 Nielsen Analytics report, ''The Economics of Podcasting'', discloses that more than six percent of U.S. adults, or nearly nine million web users, downloaded at least one podcast in the past 30 days. This new consumer-driven medium offers compelling opportunities for marketers, sponsorships and branded content as this audience is expected to increase five fold to over 50 million subscribers by decade’s end. Based on figures Wizzard’s Management has seen from various podcast hosting companies, we believe this number could be substantially higher as soon as next year.
Further, the booming industry of podcasting is one where advertising is the main source of revenue for the content creator. According to eMarketer the projections for ad spending on podcasts will reach $300 million by 2010 – up steeply from $80 million last year. In a November 2005 Business Week article, it was estimated that popular podcasts flat advertising rates range from a few thousand dollars a month to as much as $45,000.
To kick-off this new venture, Wizzard and Switchpod will be attending the 2nd Annual Podcast & Portable Media Expo in the greater Los Angeles area on September 29th and 30th. This is the only industry event that brings together influential podcasters, media, corporate executives and device manufacturers to cover the complete range of business objectives.
About Wizzard Software:
Founded in 1996, Wizzard Software has become a leader in the speech technology application development market. Wizzard architects solutions to business problems using its expertise in consulting, speech development tools and building speech based applications for the Desktop and Internet. Wizzard has achieved global recognition because of its expertise with voice communication whether it is via computer or telephone. Wizzard's successes have lead to expanding speech technology opportunities in both the government and commercial sectors including several technology and healthcare industry products and services. For more information, visit www.wizzardsoftware.com.
Legal Notice
Legal Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Statements: "Forward-looking Statements" as defined in the Private Securities litigation Reform Act of 1995 may be included in this news release. These statements relate to future events or our future financial performance. These statements are only predictions and may differ materially from actual future results or events. We disclaim any intention or obligation to revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise. There are important risk factors that could cause actual results to differ from those contained in forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to risks associated with changes in general economic and business conditions, actions of our competitors, the extent to which we are able to develop new services and markets for our services, the time and expense involved in such development activities, the level of demand and market acceptance of our services, changes in our business strategies and acts of terror against the United States.
PlayStation Portable is a registered trademark of Sony Corp; iPod is a registered trademark of Apple Corp.
IR Contact:
Arthur Douglas and Associates
Art Batson (407-478-1120)
Wizzard Contact:
Danielle Lewis (412-621-0902)
Marketing Director
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