Product Review: Audible.com Audio Books

About the company: Audible.com, recently named the best consumer Web service by CNet.com, features daily audio editions of The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, as well as Forbes, Harvard Business Review, Scientific American, and Fast Company. The site offers a collection of audiobook best sellers and classics by authors such as Tom Clancy, Stephen King, John Grisham, Janet Evanovich, James Patterson, the Dalai Lama, David McCullough, Stephen Hawking, William Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, and Jane Austen. There are also speeches, lectures, and on-demand radio programs including Marketplace, All Things Considered, Car Talk, Fresh Air, and This American Life, and all of the programs are available for playback, burning to audio CD, and on-the-go listening using numerous AudibleReady portable digital audio players.

The big pitch: Join Audible.com today and get a free Apple iPod Shuffle, or 2 free audio programs.

If you're one of the millions of people in North America who spend hours each day stuck in traffic, cursing at the lack of intelligence on drive-time radio, then you may well jump for joy when you hear about this service - downloadable audio books, newspapers, radio progams and speeches, which you can burn to CD and play in your car on your way to work - for less than the cost of the original book itself!

Audible.com just plain rules. You choose the audio book or other program that you want to download, pay a fee so the author isn't stiffed, then the file comes directly to you, protected from piracy, but also easily adaptable to whatever format you prefer to listen to.

Want to play Bill Maher's New Rules on your home computer? Done. Prefer to burn a copy of Freakanomics to CD for listening to on the way to work each morning? No problem. Or perhaps you'd like to port the DaVinci Code audio file to your iPod and listen to it while jogging? Piece of cake!

Regular readers of the New York Times will be thrilled that they can download an audio version instead of having to find time to read the thing cover to cover, or maybe you'd prefer the Wall Street Journal? How about some NPR programming? Or maybe you want to hear George Bush's commencement speech at the US Naval Academy (just for a laugh, of course)...

It's all there - The Alchemist, How to Win Friends and Influence People, Bill Clinton's My Life, Dude Where's My Country?, Stephen King, John Irving, Janet Evanovich, Thomas Friedman, even original works from comedians like Robin Williams and Greg Proops, or adult material like Penthouse: Between the Sheets.

So how good is this company exactly? Let me put it to you this way. While I'm writing this, I'm listening to an audio version of The Daily Show's 'America: The Book', as narrated by Jon Stewart, and it cost me LESS than the hardcover version that has sat on my bookshelf unread for the last six months.

Audible's BasicListener™ program allows you to choose one audiobook and one audio magazine, newspaper, or radio program per month for just $14.95. The PremiumListener™ program members can choose any two digital audiobooks each month for just $21.95, which is an incredible saving, and is incidentally the program we use ourselves.

You can buy the audio books without joining Audible's membership program if you like, but if you're a member, the programs cost you less, and if you commit yourself to a six-month membership, they'll send you an Apple iPod Shuffle (or at least that was the offer at the time of writing), so really you've got nothing to lose.

The Product Trends rating: We love this service - repeat: WE LOVE THIS SERVICE. Five stars all the way. Join now, tell your friends, and you'll never regret it as long as you spend ten minutes a day in traffic.

To try Audible.com for yourself, click the image below:


Psst! Want a free 50%-off coupon for any purchase at Audible Books?
Click here, but keep it to yourself!

posted by Oz @ 2:46 PM