Lexy lets you dial-a-podcast on-demand
Lexy, a service that lets you hear on-demand short-form news and entertainment podcasts, called Quikcasts, on your mobile phone, just nabbed $1.25 million in seed funding from KPG Ventures. The San Francisco-based company says it aims to eliminate the time it takes for users to upload audio files to their phones.
Somewhat oddly, the service doesn’t require you to download any applications. Instead, you dial 415-692-4933, and your predefined playlist is there waiting for you on the other end of the line (an automated voice gives you a menu of options to choose from). You can add Quikcasts to your playlist directly on the phone through this service, on Lexy’s web site, or on the sites of content publishers that offer Quikcasts. The service will also send you alerts over text and email when new episodes of your selected podcasts are released.
It’s possible to access your playlist on the web as well if you don’t want to listen on your phone. Each Quikcast is about one to six minutes long, and the segments currently offered include sports updates from ESPN, NPR’s Story of the Day, The Onion’s Radio News, the Front Page from the New York Times, and news summaries from a handful of local news stations.
Dialing a number to listen to mobile media may sound pretty bizarre to an audience that considers smartphones the norm. But Lexy makes it possible for the millions of people without web-enabled phones to get a taste of the same content. A noble endeavor, to be sure, but there seem to be a couple of snags in the model. The iPhone app that does roughly the same thing, RSS Player Podcast Catcher, remembers where you left off in your listening whenever you’re interrupted by a call or text. If you get a call while connected to Lexy, you will probably have to hang up and start over next time you dial in (although granted, you can fast-forward and rewind using your touchtone keypad). More importantly, the company’s subscribers pay standard calling and texting rates to use the service. Lexy bills itself as a perfect solution for users’ commutes, but this seems impractical considering the associated costs.
It’s unclear whether the company will take steps to resolve those problems moving forward. There is nothing else out there quite like Lexy at the moment, but that might be for good reason.
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About the Author, Camille Ricketts
Camille is the lead writer for GreenBeat. She came to VentureBeat from Google where she worked on its traditional platforms team, particularly in TV. Before that, she was a reporter for the Wall Street Journal in New York and London. Follow her on Twitter at @camillericketts, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.
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