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#ThingsIwantToExist: better ebook readers. Hell, a better app for reading digital text altogether—when I shift from "ebook reader" to "interactive reading" I find myself thinking current best thing might almost be "paste into gdocs" and that's nuts.
Here's a related thread someone else made, with a few suggestions (spaced repetitions, auto-summaries, etc) https://t.co/gepupxjPSb
I think it can go WAY further though. We're still stuck in skeumorphisms. We have 100s of experiments at UIs for composing or editing one's own writing (that needs more innovation too but 🤫) but so few takes on "how to relate to prose you've never read before"!
SOCIAL STUFF I'd like to see in e-readers: - see what/when friends are reading - share highlights & comments with friends (like gdocs but better) - ask friends to comment on a given passage - direct integration with tweeting passages—& allow them to somehow deeplink into the book
CREATIVE STUFF I'd like to see in e-readers - ability to remix books by reorganizing sections or pulling in other passages - ability to link between sections of books - ability to draw or record audio as a comment (ofc, would want all of these to be shareable too)
MNEMONIC STUFF I'd like to see in e-readers: - make your own SR cards inline by blanking out words - share SR cards - make & share song mnemonics - embed spaced repetition cards in book/doc (see @michael_nielsen & @andy_matuschak's work 👇) https://t.co/tpHafSxD0y
NONLINEARITY STUFF I'd like to see in e-readers: (even with paper, who needs to read books linearly?) - implementations of different paths through non-fiction books - ability to track sections/chapters/pages read without going in order https://t.co/p5ggzOdat4
RANDOM STUFF I'd like to see in e-readers: - polls & surveys - relatedly, live-updating stats - a VR e-reader where you can have dozens of pages floating in mid-air and can draw connections between them😎 - publish improvements/corrections (with history!) https://t.co/JyRQhxoFzL
As people are beginning to notice, Twitter is basically the best app for the social & creative stuff above, which is NUTS given that it was made for public texting and evolved as a news platform. And it needs major work to be optimal for this purpose. https://t.co/XF5OLY8KR3
Nice Here’s my #1 rec for @twitter: realize that quote tweets are a killer feature of your product. Add it as a separate part of notifications besides All and Mentions. And separate it from RTs. Ie make it “likes, RTs, QTs”. Sounds radical? It’ll push this game into hyperdrive https://t.co/sVuqnoC13t
Another piece on the importance of QTs. But there are like 4 non-existing relationships tweets could have! And the links between apps-for-reading and twitter are still too weak. Including no ability to copy-paste original text as text (because screenshot). https://t.co/DfQmOYeyLt
@fortelabs has been working hard on *workflows* for interactive reading ("progressive summarization") but the tools for this are still far from ideal. And the kinds of workflows that we can't even imagine because the tools aren't there. https://t.co/0C5T43bKHn
@Conaw has been working on some incredible software prototypes in this space. Not focused on e-readers but his app does include progressive summarization etc. Check out this video demo and request access at https://t.co/BZXglZhjzK https://t.co/8ACdUo3Sdd
Update: https://t.co/Wj4Ja1hGS0
In the months since I wrote this tweetstorm, https://t.co/BZXglZhjzK has gone from "cool proof-of-concept" to "thrilling workable system". Currently experimenting with importing an ebook and interlinking it in exactly the way I describe I want to in this thread. https://t.co/DL8CGMYQc6
Another excellent feature request: https://t.co/VZPfazrF1x
Oooh this looks like a great reader/annotator: https://t.co/zghXBSvdgN (Mac only for now, unfortunately) https://t.co/HZEdAIz07p