In a bid to woo traffic-weary commuters and other mobile users, the San Francisco Chronicle has trotted out an audio version of its printed edition.

The San Francisco Chronicle Audio Companion was first announced in September, said Jonathan Hiller, chief information officer for the paper (daily, 512,000; Sunday, 523,000).

Hiller said the idea for an audio edition, which users can listen to via CD or mp3 players, came last summer when the Chronicle was approached by MobileSoft, an Atlanta-based audio software developer.

The audio feed’s content is accessible through the Chronicle’s Web site. Technology developed by MobileSoft enables users to determine what content they want to hear and when the content should be downloaded onto their CD or mp3 players via the Internet.

The audio feed is available each weekday, beginning at 5 a.m.

With one of the longest average commutes for workers in the United States, the San Francisco Bay Area seems to be an excellent place to launch an audio version of the paper.

“We have research that says that the average commute time for more than 190,000 [San Francisco-area] commuters exceeds 30 minutes each way,” Hiller said, “and I’m one of them … it’s about an hour and 15 minutes in the morning, and about an hour going home. So, I’m one person who [has been] looking forward to this product.”

Subscriptions are offered on a monthly basis, ranging from $4.95 to $14.95 per month depending or whether or not the user is a subscriber to the print edition.

Listening vs. reading

The audio service is forcing the paper to edit text for the ear and not just the eye.

“The thing we’ve discovered through this process is that the text needs to be edited for audio,” Hiller said. “You can’t just pour print content into the audio format and have it work; it needs to be somewhat hand-crafted. Not a lot of editing, but some editing so that it works. It’s a different experience to hear something than it is to read something. It took us awhile to hone in on that important point, so we are now refining that process to make sure that the text stories that are selected are appropriate for an audio format.”

Initially, professional readers provided through MobileSoft will read the stories, but Hiller says the Chronicle will test having staff provide audio for some stories.

“No question. That’s something that we want to do,” he said. “It’s something that will evolve over time, and we have the ability to do that, but integrating audio into a newsroom workflow is no small task.”

Hiller said the Chronicle is also evaluating whether or not to carry ads on the service. It will do so, he said, “if it can be done in a very tasteful way.”

“I can’t say at this point that we won’t include advertising, but if we do it, we’ll do our best to do it in a tactful way.”