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Comment by eps | Hacker News Reader

The only pages I am using the Readability bookmarklet on are those that are impossible to read in their native design. Rewarding authors of such pages (and effctively excluding well-designed blogs from the rewarding process altogether) seems counter-productive. Also this gives them a tangible incentive to not improve the usability of their websites. I'm all for micropayng for the content, but this solution is backwards.

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It will work better for Instapaper. I use it regardless of the site formatting, maybe biased towards the longer pieces, which is a good thing.

I agree, I only use Readability on sites that are difficult to read in their native format. It seems that the Readability guys are presupposing that most users use readability on everything, and that the user would be happy to see money going to sites the user likes and visits often. However, I don't really like most sites I end up using Readability on, and they also rarely need any more money. This will probably last a short time and spend most of its lifecycle entirely gamed by publishers.

Like eps, you've assumed that this application is like the Readability bookmarklet. It isn't. It's an almost completely different thing.

Here's the model.

1. Publisher embeds Readability code on their site.

2. Subscriber reads sites through Readability application.

3. When the Subscriber visits a known Publisher, Readability records the visit.

4. At the end of the billing period, Readability dishes out cash, divided up according to how many times the Subscriber visited each known Publisher.

I understand this model well because it is almost exactly the same model I dreamt up in 2008, that Contenture launched with circa 2009 and that Kachingle filed a business method patent application for in 2007 (as I recall). Not long ago another such company / site, Sprinklepenny, was up for sale on flippr.

Because I am a big sook, I pretty much gave up on this idea in late 2009 when I learned about Kachingle and Contenture. Since then Contenture have quit the field. Kachingle has remained but their site basically seems like a social network for crazy cat ladies. Flattr have gotten awesome publicity because of the PirateBay connection, but their model is flawed in that it requires all parties to pay in.

I am hoping to get back into this space myself this year. My advantage is technological -- basically a secure tracking protocol that doesn't require a special application or any buttons to be clicked. Other than that I'm probably doomed to fail, but fuck it, so was every other successful startup of the last 10 years.

There's no need to embed any code on anyone's site. The whole point is that Readability automatically detects the main body content from a page and extracts it.

As a publisher, if your main body content isn't being detected automatically, probably because your HTML is awful, you can add some classes to the key elements to fix that. But that's not necessary.

There's also no need to register as a publisher to receive contributions. From their FAQ:

"Readability keeps track of pages visited even before a publisher registers with us to view their statistics. If your site has garnered traffic to Readability, we’re already earmarking money for you."

https://www.readability.com/faq/#view-plainGuidelines

However, you will need to register to actually get the funds.

Ah, so it's completely mediated by their app. That's a clever way to get publishers to sign up -- "you could be earning $X right now!"

Actually, if you check out the NYTimes article: > The company plans to pay them “regardless of their participation”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/01/technology/01read.html?_r=...

I think of it more like a micropayment system and I like the idea. It's not like I can't continue to use readability (or Safari's built in add-on), but this sets up a system to subscribe to content with some value added. I understand your point that people might only use it for sites they use readability for, but I think it could also be used like instapaper, a way of getting your reading in one place the way you want it. You're probably right that there should be some incentive for sites that "play by the rules."

The move to all online content is actually a bit disturbing to me because, as a librarian, I see print magazines go under and leave libraries out in the cold in terms of getting the content to users. Paywalls are designed for individuals, not institutions. I hope the "one subscription" model might catch on as there's a way to include institutions in that mix.

If I understand the model correctly, they want you to browse various sites through their applet. They'll dish out money based on which sites you visit.

Yes, you are right, the article says exactly that. And now, what is your opinion about this strategy? You consider it a bad thing to do?

If you look at my other comments in this thread, you'll see that I independently conceived of a slight variation of the same idea (as have several others). I still think it has amazing potential.

I am different. I use readability bookmarklet almost everywhere, in order to read in the unified clean design, but with the two exception: I read some blogs in Google reader, and I send some articles to Instapaper and read them in my phone. But I almost always get rid of the original webpage design, even if it is easily readable. I just got used to the "pure text with the same font" approach.

Personally, I use a port of Readability in my feed reader to get around feeds with summaries in it. I should probably release it some time soon...

You're already rewarding them by reading the pages and going to the trouble of using Readability on them.

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