29. A device for presenting web content comprising: a hardware network interface configured to receive encoded content, the encoded content includes text-based content extracted from web content, and the encoded content is encoded by an encoding device in a format suitable for presenting the text-based content as spoken audio using a template automatically selected by an encoding device processor of the encoding device based on one or more of a type of the text-based content and a content provider for the text-based content, the template including placeholders to be replaced with respective portions of the text-based content, a configuration of the template and the placeholders in the template being selected based on the type of the text-based content and selectively employed to generate the encoded content; a display configured to display a user interface for requesting, presenting, and selecting web text items; an audio output device configured to output speech audio; a processor; and a computer-readable storage medium storing instructions executable by the processor to: decode the encoded content with a decoding module to access the text-based content, the text-based content being accessed, via the hardware network interface, from a content database including one or more web text tables for storing each item of the text-based content in respective rows of the web text tables, the content database including a category table for storing available categories of text-based content in respective rows of the category table, where each web text table of the one or more web text tables is associated with a different type of web text stored in that web text table, and each web text table includes different fields from other web text tables based on the type of web text stored in that web text table; display the user interface including a plurality of panels, the plurality of panels including an item list panel for displaying one or more web text items of the text-based content, and a content panel for displaying at least a portion of a selected web text item of the text-based content; generate a speech audio signal based on the text-based content with a text-to-speech module responsive to receiving input to the user interface requesting a first web text item to be output as spoken audio; and output the speech audio signal via the audio output device to present the first web text item as spoken audio.
48. The device of claim 29 where receipt of the encoded content is subscription-based such that the device receives the encoded content in response to receipt at a server of a request for text-based content that is associated with a valid subscription.