Comments on: An ear for downloads

For Audible CEO Donald Katz, there's money to be made in offering the sounds of "history in the making."

[p.shearer]

Audible is a great service

I have been an audible customer for about four years now. Within that time I have listened to hundreds of books while mowing the grass, building a shed, and many other brain-dead activities. I highly recommend them!

[applian]

Replay Radio too.

Another option for "literary listening" is Replay Radio. This $29.95 program is like a TiVo for Web radio, and creates MP3 files or CDs which you can listen to anywhere.

Audible is like HBO -- premium content you pay for. Replay Radio is like network TV with a TiVo.

If you like spoken word audio, try Replay Radio as well. It works great!

www.replay-radio.com

NPR.ORG HAS BEEN OFFERING A SIMILAR PUBLIC SERVICE FOR YEARS

listen to all sorts of public heards, national press club sepeches, live musical performances and all NPR stories free on npr.org.

duh

News flash buddy, Theres a little more offered on audible!

NPR.ORG HAS BEEN OFFERING A SIMILAR PUBLIC SERVICE FOR YEARS

listen to all sorts of public hearings, national press club sepeches, live musical performances and all NPR stories free on npr.org.

[geneven]

Problems with Audible

I have been a Serious Listener at Audible for as long as it was possible to subscribe at that level. Unfortunately, I am in Linux at the moment and thus can't listen to Audible content because of the proprietary nature of their content. This also limits the number of MP3-type players I can use.

Audible has continually been improving, though it is difficult to understand some of their selections -- you can't get James Joyce's Ulysses (unabridged) or Lord of the Rings, but you can get something by L. Ron Hubbard (in German only!) and quite a bit of right-wing ranting and a bit of left-wing ranting. At the moment, there is no cost-effective alternative to Audible.