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Wouldn’t it be great to just tell your blog what to post? The heck with all this writing stuff! That’s just a one way express ticket to carpal tunnel city. What I want to do is dictate blog posts, and have them turned into text automatically. Maybe not all my blog posts, but some of them for sure.
This should be easy. I have an iPhone, right?
As soon as it’s done with the dishes, I’ll put it on writing blog posts.
Ok, so it’s not quite that easy. Yes, it has built-in sound recording, but that’s not quite the same as built-in dictation. You still have to purchase software specifically written for dictation.
Fortunately, Ricky Buchanan already has everything I need to know about speech-to-text dictation for all things Mac. 21 articles so far, and growing I’m sure. Ricky is your one stop shop for everything you need to know about speech to text on a Mac, from hardware to software, to how to use it all.
For example, I’ve been looking at the Windows Dragon NaturallySpeaking product, as it seems to be a well-regarded at a decent price. But I’d like to use my Macbook. Ricky reports that Nuance (makers of Dragon) recently purchased MacSpeech, a major player for the Mac platform. This is probably good news for everyone, customers, users, and MacSpeech employees.
Here’s some questions for you:
- Are you using any dictation products?
- If so, which product on which platform? And how is it working out?
- If not, why not?
I’m really interested in your experience and thoughts. Speech-to-text may not seem that important right now, but suspect that, all of a sudden, we’re going to find it everywhere. Not a train I want to miss.
New direction
I just looked through my statistics over the last couple of days: around 600 hits… and none for Week in Review articles.
Week in Review gets ZERO traffic.
So this is the last one.
Which is too damn bad, really, because these Week in Review articles are some of the most enjoyable articles for me to write. However, writing Week in Review articles is really time consuming. I’m not Jimmy Thudpucker, I can’t cut these turkeys by mail.
I will continue linking to interesting people, and I will continue current story lines. I’ll open new story lines as well, just differently.
I’ll be watching the blog stats over time as well. If for whatever reason the Week in Review series starts to get traction, I’ll start writing them again.
However…
As you will notice below…
I’m still listing out the week’s articles, their SEO Descriptions, and linking back to previous Week’s in Reviews.
So what’s changed?
What’s changed is the focus, it’s going to be tighter with fewer but better outbound links. I won’t be titling these articles “Week in Review” and won’t be doing any direct promotion for the series. I’m continuing this way because the internal linking and SEO Description accountability benefits me in the long term.
The Week in Review March 6, 2010
- Saturday Morning Surfing: How’s Your Blog Traffic Lately? Has your blog traffic plateaued? Here’s a few reasons why that happens, and suggestions getting out of your traffic rut.
- How a 9 Day Denial of Service Attack Affected Blog Traffic. Having your website attacked is no fun. If you get attacked, do what I did and learn from all your traffic statistics. You might be pleasantly surprised.
- How to Read Your SEO Metadata Like Google (really fast). Search engines will display your metadata. Ensure it’s well-written “teaser” copy with relevant keywords. Marshall shows you how to quickly check your result.
- Technical Tuesday: Another Look at WordPress register_activation_hook. register_activation_hook is a perennial stumbling block for WordPress programmers, but it’s not that hard to understand, as shown by examples in this article.
- Consistency – A 7th Characteristic of Trust Building (Everyone can do this). Being consistent is a great way to build trust, and there’s more than one way to practice consistency. Read more then share your blogging consistency.
- No blog post today. Two releases this week. Sometimes, you just don’t feel like writing a blog post. When that happens, do what I do and don’t write one. Read more to see what I didn’t write.
- Last WIAW Week in Review
- Carlos Throws Down, and Closed Means Closed. Yep, the Week in Review. Meet Bindu, Ricky, & Carlos: custard powder changes a relationship, success is a habit, and you really don’t have an excuse. Everyone can succeed.
- Stay tuned…
Next WIAW Week in Review
I am constantly impressed at your flexibility with this blog. I would hazard a guess that many blogs fail because they do not bend where necessary and flex to traffic and SEO demands. Great example to the rest of us. That and constantly working to achieve traffic and visit goals gives me something to do just when I thought I was finished.
Thanks Dave
Justin
.-= Justin Matthews´s last blog ..Do you eat the dirty cheese or just post it? =-.
Justin, more changes coming. I’ll be putting a footer popup back on the site. I had one for months, it worked well.
When you start selling, you will realize something very quickly: most of your customers have never left even one single comment on your blog. And that’s ok.
Always remember, you’re building relationships with that large silent majority of your readers. Not just with the people who comment.
.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog ..How to Read Your SEO Metadata Like Google (really fast) =-.
Dave,
Can you (or did you already) talk some more about those silent readers. How do you figure out what they like? And do they really buy when you come up with products?
Ralph, most first cut at a product is figuring out if what I need other people need too. So far, I’ve sold all the Blog Post Engineering ebooks I’ve offered. Which is to say, 20. It’s a start. Half of those buyers, never left a comment here.
Take a look at problogger traffic, then at the number of comment. Darren’s getting about 1% comment rate. Yes, he probably sells to that 1% as well, but he is definitely finding many, many customers among the other 99%.
.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog ..Saturday Morning Surfing: How’s Your Blog Traffic Lately? =-.
Ooooh, I don’t think I could post from dictation on my iPhone. I’d have to write a script, and then, what’s the point?
It would be fantastic for first drafts though…
.-= Deacon´s last blog ..Hands – Caress them and Care for them =-.
It’s going to be really interesting to see how all this plays out. I’m kind of with you, I find scripting ahead extremely useful. Jenkins in his Video Boss series recommends the same thing.
.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog ..World Class Copywriting: Are there Bird droppings on your catapult? =-.
You don’t need to write a script, but you will need to write an outline before you get the hang of dictating from scratch. My Dad’s been dictating to secretaries taking shorthand, or to dictation machines, for longer than I’ve been alive so I got him to write Dictating Well: Principles From A Master. It’s very educational!
.-= Ricky Buchanan´s last blog ..SpeakingFox: Tell Firefox To Talk =-.
Havi Brooks (The Fluent Self) uses voice transcription software to blog. She calls her little transcription buddy “Stu” – and every week she posts a list of Stu-isms. Stu-isms are the ridiculous transcription errors the software makes, like:
people will hang at my meme beach house
instead of “people will hate me and be jealous”
I think there is lots of potential – if you get past the amusing wonkiness – to blog like this (if only part of the time).
I find that copy to polish and shape is the first hurdle. Spitting it out verbally and then having text to edit would work for some conversational, stream of consciousness kinds of pieces. (It would also mean that there was more copy in the queue, just waiting for some editing TLC)
Maybe this is one of the reasons Havi’s blog feels so conversational. The seemingly unmediated flavour might foster a sense of community and intimacy.
Havi seems pretty cool, but she’s too non-linear even for me.
I can appreciate that there’s a story structure there (there is, right?), but coming in to the middle of the story, just didn’t get enough traction. Shows the importance of audience (I’m not in hers).
.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog ..Technical Tuesday: Another Look at WordPress register_activation_hook =-.
I love the idea of speech dictation to create rough drafts. I will be looking into that. I echo Justin’s sentiments. There’s so much to learn from you in so many ways. Thanks for sharing.
.-= Carlos Velez´s last blog ..The Law Of Attraction Trinity: Action =-.
Thanks Carlos.
I seem to pretty good at figuring out what needs to be done, and the best way to do it. After that I kind of lose interest.
.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog ..Carlos Throws Down, and Closed Means Closed. Yep, the Week in Review =-.
Hahaha! I don’t know if you intend to amuse me, but you do.
.-= Carlos Velez´s last blog ..Conscious Me vs. TheInfoPreneur: The $10 Prize =-.
Now you have to be thinking to yourself: “Ok, I see what he’s doing here, but what am I missing?”
I tried dictating a post and found I rambled even more than if I were typing. And here I thought I might actually capture my most poignant thoughts. In reality, they are only poignant in my mind. Kind of funny [sad] when you think about it.
So, is that zero figure an exaggerated number in comparison to the others? Seems you have a few hits here, but that could be due to the new titling [which I thought was another word entirely upon first read].
.-= Anne´s last blog ..Lucky Me =-.
Dictating takes a considerable amount of skill. It’s a lost art in fact, which is going to return.
I may post a stupendous example of it from Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson, but have to find it first. (I’m writing this because otherwise I’ll forget.)
These articles get fair traffic the day they are written, and fair commenting, but no traffic after that. Unfortunately, that’s not good enough. Articles as long as these need to find their way in to the long tail and accumulate traffic.
Otherwise, I’m better off writing 1200 words on some aspect of, say, Thesis theme. Those articles get hammered with traffic! But no comments. :(
.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog ..Saturday Morning Surfing: How’s Your Blog Traffic Lately? =-.
Dictation is a skill you need to learn just as you learned to type – you need to learn it and then practice it if you really want to know how to do it. Certainly if you have a tendency to ramble it can exaggerate that, but it’s possible to write very tight and focussed stuff like legal reports and professional letters via dictation – there’s nothing inherently rambly about it. If you’re interested in learning more, my Dad’s been dictating to secretaries taking shorthand, or to dictation machines, for longer than I’ve been alive so I got him to write Dictating Well: Principles From A Master. It’s very educational!
Ricky
.-= Ricky Buchanan´s last blog ..New MacSpeech Scribe For Transcription =-.
Ricky, that article is so good, I don’t need to bookmark. I know where it is and I won’t forget!
Folks, go read. Look past the information on dictation and see how the story is told. It will stick with you.
.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog ..Consistency – A 7th Characteristic of Trust Building (Everyone can do this) =-.
Glad you liked the article – Dad’s great like that but it’s not typical skimmable “blog style writing” so it doesn’t really get many page views. I think that’s a huge shame because the information is invaluable.
He even convinced me to put a picture of me at 4 years old up there – he’s good!! :)
.-= Ricky Buchanan´s last blog ..SpeakingFox: Tell Firefox To Talk =-.
We don’t worry so much about skimmability here. Just readability!
I’m not using any of these dictation products. My phone has recording capability, but never tried to use any software that will convert my recordings to text. Maybe soon when I realize I really need to use it.
So this is your last Week in Review… I have also been doing this since WW1006 and I found out that weekly recaps really help increase your page views. I am not sure how exactly you treat PV here in WIAW.
.-= Cebu Tech Blogger´s last blog ..BlogBuzzer – Another Blog Pinging Tool Review =-.
Bert, they may increase your page views, so you should keep doing them. I don’t see evidence they increase mine, so I’m better off writing something that will get more views. I’ll still be linking weekly as above.
.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog ..Technical Tuesday: Another Look at WordPress register_activation_hook =-.
Just keep in mind that your ‘week in review’ articles still provide at least two nice benefits: (1) fresh content to SE and (2) deep links to your other articles.
Gabe, I’ll still be producing a weekly link list as above, and I’ll find something interesting to write about to be sure.
.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog ..Consistency – A 7th Characteristic of Trust Building (Everyone can do this) =-.