I did a podcast interview with Bob Walsh, who just released a new book called MicroISV: From Vision to Reality (you can download the audio here if you haven’t already). I also used the interview to test out a new service called CastingWords.

CastingWords will take any audio file you provide and transcribe it for you at a rate of just $0.42 per minute of audio. To transcribe the 45 minute interview with Bob, I paid $18.90, and the turnaround time was about 36 hours. They provide you with three file format: html, text and RTF. I simply copied their transcript, pasted it into MS Word, then converted it to a PDF file. It’s pretty long, so I’m not posting the full transcript on this blog. If you want to read it, get the PDF file here.

As for CastingWords, I couldn’t be happier with it. You simply provide a link to the audio file, tell them how long the audio runs, then pay the fee. Very simple. Very easy. The only way it could be better is if it was free and faster, but 36 hours is pretty damn good in my book, and from what I’ve seen, their rates are below most of the transcription services out there. I’ve not yet checked the transcript thoroughly for typos, but it did pass a spell-check with flying colors. If you need some audio transcribed, definitely give it a look.