Bringing Speed Reading To the Web

vencs writes "With the latest cycle of speed reading fad catching on all over, there bloomed a rather neat technique called Spritzing (an online implementation of Rapid Serial Visual Presentation). Even before the company released its SDK, many clones popped up, offering bookmarklets that do the same task. It's a cool (though situational) tool for going through text articles quickly (400-600 wpm)."

Gotta go fast

[Anonymous Coward]

Speed reading seems like a solution in search of a problem to me.

Thank the stars.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll just be happy if this trend towards low-information-density videos without transcription stops. It's such a colossal waste of everyone's time and bandwidth to have to watch a 45m video of two blowhards talking about something when I could get the same effect from 5 minutes of reading and looking at a couple of graphs or 20-second video demos.

Great until ...

[sottitron]

Great until you come along a long word or a word you don't know. Try 400 wpm when Tralfamadorian Brokinovski or Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis shows up.

Re:Thank the stars.

[Jarik C-Bol]

This. Forever this. Nothing is so frustrating as being a visual learner, and having to weed through videos where someone blathers on for 15 minutes to finally show you the 35 seconds of useful information. Also, to people who have 'intros' on their videos that are longer than the actual content after the intro: I hate you all.

Re:It does let you read faster...

[jon3k]

Just need to build a good interface. I'd like to see a "clutch" - a button I hold down to read and let go to stop. Then easy rewind/forward. Maybe a button that moves back to the last punctuation mark? I think SOME of the problems we could solve with good UI design.

Re:Great until ...

[ahabswhale]

This is why it's better to learn how to speed read the old fashioned way. If I need to slow down for something, it's not a big deal.