Real time popularity based audible content acquisition

A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause performance of operations comprising:

• analyzing generated playlists for a plurality of client devices, wherein the generated playlists contain ordered references to audio files of media content items respectively customized for the client devices;
• determining that a media content item has a threshold level of popularity based on a number of references to an initial version of an audio file of the media content item that are included in the generated playlists;
• responsive to determining that the media content item has the threshold level of popularity, transmitting, to a remote recording station, a request for a human verbal reading of the media content item;
• receiving, from the remote recording station, an audio file of the human verbal reading;
• updating the references to the initial version of the audio file of the media content item to refer to the audio file of the human verbal reading;
• and
• transmitting a playlist to a client device of the plurality of client devices, wherein the playlist includes a plurality of ordered references to audio files of media content items, including the audio file of the human verbal reading.

A computing system comprising:

• a processor;
• a memory;
• and
• program instructions, stored in the memory, that when executed by the processor, cause the computing system to perform operations comprising:
• analyzing generated playlists for a plurality of client devices, wherein the generated playlists contain ordered references to audio files of media content items respectively customized for the client devices;
• determining that a media content item has a threshold level of popularity based on a number of references to an initial version of an audio file of the media content item that are included in the generated playlists;
• responsive to determining that the media content item has the threshold level of popularity, transmitting, to a remote recording station, a request for a human verbal reading of the media content item;
• receiving, from the remote recording station, an audio file of the human verbal reading;
• updating the references to the initial version of the audio file of the media content item to refer to the audio file of the human verbal reading;
• and
• transmitting a playlist to a client device of the plurality of client devices, wherein the playlist includes a plurality of ordered references to audio files of media content items, including the audio file of the human verbal reading.