"The Next Chapter of Readwise: Our Own Reading App and the Fall of Roam"

"The Next Chapter of Readwise: Our Own Reading App and the Fall of Roam"

In a world where technology has disrupted traditional publishing and distribution models, the experience of reading itself remains unchanged. We spend hours engrossed in books, only to forget nearly everything we understood in the moment. But why doesn't software help us internalize the knowledge we want to apply to our personal and work lives?

This is the question that Readwise seeks to answer. Their mission is to improve the practice of reading through software by an order of magnitude. And to achieve this, they have built their own fully-integrated reading app. But why did they decide to build their own app? The simplest explanation is that it's what their users have been asking for.

During the late 2000s, there was a brief moment when it seemed like reading technology was set to flourish. The advent of Kindle, Pocket, Instapaper, Google Reader, Goodreads, and others gave us hope for a better reading experience. However, looking back, it's clear that this era was more about controlling the distribution of content rather than advancing the practice of reading itself.

Readwise began by focusing on what happens after you read. Their aim was to address the problem of retention. They understood that if you want to get more out of reading, you first need to forget less. With their reading app, they offer a local-first foundation that enables blazingly fast, full-text search of your entire library of books, articles, annotations, and highlights. You can find whatever you're looking for, even if all you can remember is a single word. And the best part is, it works offline too.

But improving what happens after you read is just one piece of the puzzle. Readwise also recognizes the problem of content overload. Most of us save more things than we can actually get through, turning our digital gardens into digital graveyards. To combat this, Readwise has made highlighting a first-class feature in their reading app. Highlighting allows users to capture the most important parts of what they read, making it easier to revisit and internalize the key ideas.

Readwise is not trying to make reading a social activity or enable an internet-scale annotation layer. They understand that there is still so much untapped potential in single-player mode. By focusing on the individual reader and their workflow, they can provide a more tailored and effective reading experience.

However, Readwise isn't the only player in this space. The fall of Roam Research, a popular note-taking tool, highlights the challenges of organizing and retrieving information as it grows over time. When the amount of information surpasses a certain threshold, it becomes difficult to categorize, connect, and retrieve certain information. The problem lies in the disconnection and isolation of information.

Search can help solve this issue, just as it does on the internet. The interconnectedness of hypertext allows search engines to assess the quality of information through citation. In the case of note-taking, bi-directional linking, or backlinks, may help us understand the relationships among our notes. However, the best solution is still up for debate.

Many of us have a garbage dump full of crufty links and pieces of text that we hardly ever revisit. We feel guilty and sad about it. The process of deciding where to put a note or how to categorize it can be a direct and immediate pain. It hinders our note-taking process and prevents us from taking notes at all.

But the reality is that we rarely go back through all of our old notes as often as we think we will. Even if they were organized better, it might not change the frequency of revisiting them. The question of where to put a note becomes less important when we realize that sifting through old notes feels like sifting through stale garbage.

In conclusion, the next chapter of Readwise and the fall of Roam highlight the challenges and opportunities in the world of reading and note-taking. While Readwise aims to improve the practice of reading through their own reading app, the problem of organizing and retrieving information remains a challenge. However, by focusing on retention, highlighting, and tailored individual experiences, we can start to make progress. Here are three actionable pieces of advice:

1. Embrace the power of highlighting: Make highlighting a core part of your reading process. Capture the key ideas and insights that you want to revisit and internalize.

2. Prioritize retention: Find ways to remember what you read. Whether it's through spaced repetition, summarization, or active recall, make an effort to retain the knowledge you gain from reading.

3. Experiment with different note-taking methods: Don't be afraid to try different tools and techniques to organize and retrieve your notes. Bi-directional linking, backlinks, and search functionalities can all play a role in helping you access the information you need faster and more effectively.

By combining the efforts of Readwise and the lessons learned from the fall of Roam, we can work towards a future where reading and note-taking are seamlessly integrated, empowering us to learn, grow, and make the most of the knowledge at our fingertips.