Audm

Audm was a subscription mobile app that converted longform print journalism into professionally narrated digital audio, described as offering "mini-audiobooks." Rather than relying on synthetic text-to-speech, the service used professional voice actors and audiobook narrators to read articles word-for-word, producing hours of new stories each week for subscribers. The app was available on iOS and Android and, at the time of its acquisition, was priced at $8.99 per month or $59.99 per year following a three-day free trial.

The company licensed and narrated articles from a wide set of publishers. Around the time of its Y Combinator participation these included Wired, The Atlantic, Esquire, Harper's Bazaar, The New York Review of Books, ProPublica and the London Review of Books; by 2020 its publisher list included The Atlantic, Outside, BuzzFeed News, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, New York, Rolling Stone and Texas Monthly, alongside a limited amount of New York Times material.

Audm was acquired by The New York Times Company in March 2020, with the founders and the rest of the team joining the Times. The Times used Audm as the basis for its own audio product; when the New York Times Audio app launched in May 2023, the standalone Audm app was sunset and existing iOS subscribers were transitioned to NYT Audio at their existing rates. A "Magazine Stand" feature in the NYT Audio app carries the curated narrated longform journalism Audm had provided.

Founding story

Founders Ryan Wegner and Christian Brink were both 2007 graduates of Columbia University, with backgrounds in psychology and software development respectively. They did not know each other in college and met in 2014, when their concept for an audio news app took shape. The founders initially experimented with crowdsourced narration before settling on professional voice talent as the way to differentiate the product from other article-to-audio services.

Business model

Direct-to-consumer subscription service sold through its mobile apps, with narrated versions of articles licensed from third-party magazines and news publishers.

Consumer subscriptions, priced at $8.99 per month or $59.99 per year after a three-day free trial at the time of the 2020 acquisition.

Traction

Team size of about 10 at the time of the Y Combinator listing; publisher roster spanning major U.S. magazines; App Store ranking of No. 20 in Magazines & Newspapers in March 2020; existing iOS subscribers were later migrated to the New York Times Audio app.

Latest developments

The New York Times launched its NYT Audio app in May 2023 and sunset the standalone Audm app, transitioning Audm iOS subscribers to NYT Audio at their existing monthly or annual rates. As of July 1, 2023 the Audm website redirected to an NYT Audio promotion and the app was no longer downloadable.