I think the idea's really neat, but at the same time I'm concerned about the effect that things like this have on the attitude of our culture. A large part of critical reading is being able to take the time to read an article/passage in-depth and judge its ideas for yourself.
From a business standpoint, are there maybe certain types of content that just aren't viable to "summarize?" Would it be better to tailor your service towards certain other types of content? Just my thoughts.
Our goal is to help people find and select what they really want to spend time reading. We feel that a summary is the perfect step between a title and the actual content and that it actually incentivizes people to read the whole thing once they're hooked by the summary.
The people that won't read the full article after reading the summary probably would have just bounced or skimmed the article extremely quickly.
You're right that there are probably certain types of contents that lend themselves to be summarized better than others. We're still figuring this one out by observing what our users and experimenting with what we summarize.
This doesn’t actually refute your concerns but we’re also in a time with more amateur authors than ever with a lot of them unable or disinterested in making their points succinctly.
Comments
I think the idea's really neat, but at the same time I'm concerned about the effect that things like this have on the attitude of our culture. A large part of critical reading is being able to take the time to read an article/passage in-depth and judge its ideas for yourself.
From a business standpoint, are there maybe certain types of content that just aren't viable to "summarize?" Would it be better to tailor your service towards certain other types of content? Just my thoughts.
Our goal is to help people find and select what they really want to spend time reading. We feel that a summary is the perfect step between a title and the actual content and that it actually incentivizes people to read the whole thing once they're hooked by the summary.
The people that won't read the full article after reading the summary probably would have just bounced or skimmed the article extremely quickly.
You're right that there are probably certain types of contents that lend themselves to be summarized better than others. We're still figuring this one out by observing what our users and experimenting with what we summarize.
This doesn’t actually refute your concerns but we’re also in a time with more amateur authors than ever with a lot of them unable or disinterested in making their points succinctly.