Good Vibrations, considered one of the greatest songs of all time, lasts approximately three minutes and thirty seconds.

The song was the product, however, of over 90 hours of recorded audio, captured over a then-unprecedented six month period of time.

Sometimes, things take a little bit of time to develop.

Back on June 10, I wrote an entire one of these newsletters on SoundHound’s Keyvan Mohajer and how “SoundHound readies for their next chapter.”

Well, that next chapter arrived yesterday, when the company announced they are going public via a $2B SPAC deal.

SoundHound is one of the original players in this nascent voice/AI ecosystem, and seeing them do this type of newsworthy deal is not only great for them, but great for the space as a whole, and great for present and future companies working with the technology.

It’s another firework going off, with what’s on the verge of becoming a 4th-of-July pyrotechnic display of great outcomes for companies across the space.

“I'm extremely proud of the work everyone at SoundHound has done to reach this significant milestone and excited for this next chapter in our journey," Keyvan Mohjer, Co-Founder and CEO, SoundHound Inc. said yesterday when I reached out to them to congratulate them and ask for a comment.

“We believe voice AI is creating a major disruption in computing and that independent voice AI platforms, such as ours, will help more companies realize their market potential with greater customer retention, brand loyalty, and market competitiveness.”

The good news wasn’t over for veteran players in the space.

ReadSpeaker announced a new SDK for the Nintendo Switch, enabling game developers for that platform to incorporate custom voices and voice-driven interfaces into their titles.

Gaming - mobile games, console games, board games, every type of game - has developed into an important market for voice/AI, whether in providing augmented, more efficient gameplay or enabling a universe’s worth of characters to have unique voices.

Speaking of voice in gaming, as we have spoken to a variety of companies both in and out of gaming, it became clear many more are able to travel and participate in conferences after January 1. Consequently, we postponed our in-person Voice of Gaming event, taking place in Austin, Texas, to Wednesday January 19.

Registration is here.

Finally, I want to call your attention to Deepgram’s own conference taking place tomorrow (November 18), called Deepgram Summit.

They’ve lined up a great list of folks to participate, and registration is free. Good way to get up to speed on Deepgram, unquestionably a rising voice/AI star.

This is the next-to-last This Week In Voice VIP newsletter for the year.

The final one will be a year in review and will come out in early December.

In the meantime, the event side of our business has gone to great lengths to lay out the entire 2022 calendar of (mostly) in-person gatherings and conferences, including of course the return of the physical Project Voice, our SXSW-style music festival Euphonious, Voice of Healthcare Summit returning to Harvard Medical School, Digital Book World returning to its original location of New York City for 2023, and more.

For those of you planning your travel, take a look below. We look forward to seeing you, in what will be an exciting year.