We’ve launched a new feature for Micro.blog Premium customers: automatic podcast episode transcripts, powered by OpenAI’s Whisper model. I’m excited about this because it’s one of the more practical, time-saving solutions coming out of the rise of AI. The automatic transcripts are so accurate they can be used as-is, or edited by hand as you have time.
I thought it would be clever to ask ChatGPT to write a blog post announcing this feature. You can see the result here. But I threw it out because I like writing my own blog posts!
At Micro.blog, we don’t usually reach for automation first. We curate the Discover section by hand, looking for posts that will provide a snapshot of activity on Micro.blog to help you find new people to follow. We don’t have trends and don’t have public likes or retweets. AI is going to reshuffle many tech products, but we’re never going to have an AI-driven algorithmic timeline. AI is a tool that we’ll only use when there is real benefit that aligns with our principles.
The new transcripts feature is available to anyone hosting their podcast on Micro.blog. When you upload a new MP3, Micro.blog will process it to generate a transcript. You can then edit the transcript or link it from your podcast page.
There is also a new Micro.blog plug-in to add a list of transcripts to your blog, as well as control options to disable transcription and link to the transcript from blog post. Search in the plug-in directory for “Transcripts” to install it.
There’s no extra charge for any of this. Micro.blog Premium has always been $10/month and it will continue to be priced that way. It includes podcast hosting and also email newsletters, bookmark archiving, web page highlights, and much more. We think it’s a great value.
