Hello, reporters! I just did a Google News Initiative training today and it reminded me of a few Google tools I have used but never recommended.
One of them is Pinpoint – a pretty new tool that Google released as part of its “Journalist Studio.” I haven’t recommended it yet due it its extreme similarity to the all-time journalism heavyweight DocumentCloud.
But – Pinpoint recently added an audio element, and that pushed me over the edge.
Pinpoint was originally meant for tagging, organizing and analyzing documents (like dcloud), but now it can transcribe audio and video files and turn those into documents.
You can upload up to 200,000 files (PDFs, MP3s, etc.) and it only takes a few minutes or seconds to analyze and transcribe them. It’s quite easy to use, and free (although currently you have to sign up using your Google account).
It has the added benefit of keeping your audio files in the safe confines of your Google account, as opposed to putting them on external servers like Otter. Skim those interviews, reporters!