The bright yellow logo and clean User Interface earned my downloading efforts.
I happened to find this Colony FM while looking for radio apps to listen to when taking a shower.
Instantly “Oh my gosh” leaked through my mouth after I saw Reddit articles being narrated by professionals.
Making audio books out of blogs/ funny web contents? This is a truly unprecedented work as far as I know.
In conclusion, I really enjoyed this app. Highly recommend if you want to try a new generation of radio app.
Here are my Pros and Cons–more like suggestions to the developers.
Pros:
1. Uniqueness and freshness
Listening to latest web contents while you’re driving/ running is a totally new, fun experience.
It’s exciting when you find not just heavy, serious media like Tech Crunch, inc.com but also casual media like Reddit.com and Medium.com
2. quality narrators
The narrators sound like semi-professionals with quite good skills, great voices, and friendliness.
Here are my 3 favorite narrators:
1) Scott Christopher
When he reads blogs it becomes a vivid, energetic news radio program. He makes the blogs sound more powerful & credible.
2)Jordan Ring
When he reads a fan novel of Bruce Wayne(BATMAN), it was like a sexy, charismatic radio drama played by celebrities.
His voice acting was impressive and fun.
If there’s a fan page for this narrator, it is no surprise to see female users making tons of sexual comments on his voice.
3) Tavonna Miller
Her voice sounds like a music coming from somewhere far-far up in the night sky. Very soft, soothing and even romantic.
Wish there are more contents on the Poem section.
‘Still I Rise – Poem by Maya Angelou’ got a life ignited by Tavonna’s voice. I strongly recommend users to check it out.
Cons (rooms for improvements)
1. Auto-play
Currently auto-play not always works. I assume it stops if there are no more contents in the category you clicked even though they are still many contents to be played in other categories.
People use radio or audio book especially when they are listening and doing something simultaneously so
searching and clicking the contents after awhile are very very bothersome.
I felt interrupted and annoyed when the autoplay stopped while my hands were still wet in the shower.
2. needs more optimized but flexible guidelines
It was cute when narrators read emoticons such as a smiley face.
However, it was meaningless and painful to listen to when narrator read the whole alphabets of random links– i.e., http//www.xxxx/xxx.html.
But I don’t mean that they need a strict Do and Don’t list. There might be a few occasions for narrators to read out links when it is funny in a specific context– i.e., http//ronry-Im-so-ronry
I recommend the developers of this app to empower narrators with flexible guidelines so they can improvise things properly for audience satisfaction.
3. Search tools needed
There are no search tools which is impossible to find specific news/blogs and also contents of your favorite narrators.
4. Playlist needed
Users expect to see the list of contents they listened to so they can find them again later on.
Clicking hearts is not easy considering the context of user experience–radio listeners’ hands might be busy.
5. Exploit the narrators popularity
Equip narrators with profile/content pages so they can be more motivated by building fans.
Users feel frustrated when there are no clickable links on narrators name on the app.
An additional business model right there if users can give money/ virtual gifts to their favorite narrators.
Again, I really love this app. Big thanks to the developers. Keep up your good work!
Worth Having App – Download the App
