On January 24, 2018, Google held ‘Google Play Audiobook Korea Release Demonstration Session‘ in its office in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. The session was held to announce the outline and characteristics of Google Play's audiobook service, which was released on January 24th in Korea time, with Jae-hui Kwon, manager of Google Play Global Product Partnership Team, and Oh-jun Kwon, leader of Contents Business at Audiensori.

According to the announcement, Google unveiled the Google Play Audiobook service, which can be enjoyed in the Google Playbook app. The service was first launched in 45 countries, including Korea, and supports a total of nine languages including Korean.



The Google Play Audiobook service is a sound book service that allows you to listen to the contents of a book, and provides various categories of audiobooks and bestsellers based on the global library provided by publishers worldwide through Google Play Books. Through this service, domestic users can enjoy books produced in Korea as well as overseas books as audio books, and some of overseas books are provided free of charge.

In particular, Google Play Audiobook service utilizes machine learning technology to automatically generate and provide a detailed table of contents that facilitates navigation underneath the main table of contents. Machine learning technology divides the text of an eBook and the words of an audiobook into syntactic units and automatically generates a detailed table of contents considering the flow of natural contents and a table of contents by detailed table of contents.

By applying an individual book purchasing model, users can purchase an audiobook that they want at a 10% discount without any burden of subscription service. In addition, they can listen to a part of the audiobook through free pre-listening before purchasing and decide to make a purchase, and the purchased book is stored in the Google Playbook app, so users can easily check the list of purchased books.

Google Play Audiobook service can be used on a variety of devices such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops using platforms such as Android, iOS, and Chrome Web. It also provides functions that are optimized for user’s lifestyle such as sleep timer settings, playback speed settings, skip forward button, listening to each table of contents, checking remaining time, background playback, and offline playback.

In addition, through interworking with Google Assistant, which is Google’s artificial intelligence voice secretary system, a number of ‘hands-free’ functions such as voice commands will be provided to Google Play Audiobook service in sequence.

Jae-hui Kwon, who introduced Google Play Audiobook service, said, ”Google Play, which has provided a variety of digital content such as games, movies, and books, is launching an audiobook service in the book sector followed by e-book. In particular, this is an innovative service with machine learning that users can use more conveniently in daily life. As interests and demands for audiobooks grow, we will provide richer audiobook contents.”



After the introduction of Google Play Audiobook Service, the introduction of the features and usage of audiobooks was followed.

The audiobook, which means a book listened by ear, is a content produced for users to read more happily. It is produced by a method in which a plurality of voice actors who fit the characters read directly without mixing the TTS, and live sound effects and background music are added. In the past, audiobooks were produced mainly for the blind, but now they are getting the spotlight as a new way of reading.

As for the process of producing an audiobook, after selecting the works and proceeding with the script work, the recording is carried out in the state where the music and effects are prepared. After the editing process and quality verification, it is then provided to users in a way of distributing the finished data.

For listening purposes of audiobooks, users answered that they mainly use the audiobook contents to enjoy their own contents or to take advantage of free time while moving. Self-development, poetry, essay, genre literature are ranked as preferred genres.

Oh-jun Kwon, leader of Contents Business at Audiensori, who introduced about an audiobook, said, ”Audiobooks are gaining attention from people who prefer to use free time, as well as from voice actors and students, and the number of users is rapidly increasing. I look forward to expanding the basics of audiobook users through our partnership with Google Play, and Audiensori will try to provide better content.”

Copyright © acrofan All Right Reserved