Listen To Fred Wilson’s Blog “AVC” On Swell Radio

I have some really fun news to share about Swell Radio (for iPhone), especially if you read Fred Wilson’s blog, AVC, daily, like I do. At Swell, we have committed our work to creating a mobile, personalized radio experience that learns about your tastes and preferences. To do this, we combine the power of a collaborative filtering algorithm that picks up on many signals about how you listen to content with a deep content management system that stitches together audio content from your favorite news sources and podcasts around the web. The result, we hope and aim for, is that Swell learns to create a customized, personalized radio stream, just for you.

That’s why I’m so excited to announce that Swell now includes Fred Wilson’s blog, AVC, in the technology section. And, if you listen to lots of technology and business content on Swell (like I do), the system will learn and send you the audio from Fred’s blog daily, so you can keep up to date on AVC in the car, while you’re working out, or anytime you fire up Swell. This is all made possible because Fred’s blog is powered for audio by VoiceBunny, which uses a network of professional voice actors to read online content, turning that audio stream into an RSS feed that lives on places like Swell Radio. So, Swell brings you Fred Wilson, every day, right into brain via your ears. You will never miss what he’s writing about, and just as Fred is a master of building and engaging his audience, you can stay on top of AVC and other conversations.

I’m personally excited by this because not only is Swell designed to deliver great content to the end-user, but I’ve found in my use of Swell, I’m able to connect in deeper and more powerful ways with new people around me. For instance, one of the weekly shows that Swell serves me is “This Week In Startups” by Jason Calacanis. It’s so good. A few months ago, I had to make a six-hour drive to the airport to pick up my family. I fired up Swell and for the first time ever heard of Jerry Colonna. The interview was so amazing, I listened to it twice and wrote this post, which went viral and generated tens of thousands of views (which is not normal for my blog).

This is what makes me excited about Swell, as it combines my interest in mobile, in product, in media, and in information — whether it’s about technology, or global affairs, business, the financial markets. A few minutes of listening to Swell every day is different than surfing the web, and there’s something about the background nature of audio that makes information and knowledge stick to my brain. This is what gets me amped up about Swell, and I hope it gets you excited, too. And, we have more* to come…

* Additionally, though less important, the full audio portions of my “Sunday Conversations” are now also available in the technology section of Swell, and you can hear my talks with people like Peter Fenton (Benchmark), Dev Khare (Lightspeed, India), David Hornik (August), Adam Nash (Wealthfront), and more as the series expands. By the way, the line up for the Fall 2013 is stellar.