#travis alber

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Melville House interviews ReadSocial

A perspective on the future of the book

Travis Alber and Aaron Miller both have undergraduate degrees in English, and Aaron also has a MFA in creative writing from Irvine. One might expect them to have typical literary professions, perhaps in traditional publishing or journalism. In fact, for the last 15 years they’ve had careers in technology. Having always been interested in the ways that literature and technology intersect, they’re two brilliant minds on the forefront of the ways that web and ebook technology are converging. And they think it’s an exciting place to be. Travis was able to answer a few questions about the future of publishing from Argentina....Read More

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Commenting On The Web Is Broken

ReadSocial Founder Travis Alber recently contributed Commenting On The Web Is Broken to the Women 2.0 network; it's an article that discusses the need for innovation in how we communicate around what we read. 

Commenting is broken. I don’t want to sound too harsh, realizing there are comments at the end of this article and that it’s technically possible to use them. The paradigm for commenting on the web hasn’t changed in 15 years, but how we communicate online has. We communicate in the moment. We share our thoughts. Talk about it.

But just like we’ve done for more than a decade, we talk about it somewhere else. We scroll 30 paragraphs down the article and type in a little box at the end. Or open a separate tab. Sometimes we comment on a separate social network with just a link to send people back to what we’re talking about.

Although we live in a world where we want to discuss things in the moment, it is somehow nearly impossible to discuss it in context. In a world where we have more ways to get information and more ways to share it, why don’t we have the ability to talk about it in context, where that information lives?

Read the rest on Women 2.0.

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Commenting On The Web Is Broken

By Travis Alber (Founder, ReadSocial)

Commenting is broken. I don’t want to sound too harsh, realizing there are comments at the end of this article and that it’s technically possible to use them. The paradigm for commenting on the web hasn’t changed in 15 years, but how we communicate online has. We communicate in the moment. We share our thoughts. Talk about it.

But just like we’ve done for more than a decade, we talk about it somewhere else. We scroll 30 paragraphs down the article and type in a little box at the end. Or open a separate tab. Sometimes we comment on a separate social network with just a link to send people back to what we’re talking about.

Although we live in a world where we want to discuss things in the moment, it is somehow nearly impossible to discuss it in context. In a world where we have more ways to get information and more ways to share it, why don’t we have the ability to talk about it in context, where that information lives?

For the full article, click here. 

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The Straw that Stirs the Drink

I can tell a ReadSocial meeting is on track when the person I’m speaking to gets a little uncomfortable and says “Well, I have to tell you, we talk a lot about adding social to our books. We’re thinking about building this.” Most people expect me to get defensive, but my reaction is usually:

That’s great! Of course you are!

If you've put much thought into it, you realize that it's more complex than just highlighting a few words. I'd imagine you're realizing you're going to have to hire the right team, commit those resources for the next 3-6 months, set up and manage the servers, create or customize a content management system, figure out what social paradigm you're going to use, design and build out the feature set, have a vision for the product roadmap, and get buy-in for a budget to handle all that long-term.

That’s why we built the ReadSocial API, because everyone is thinking about this.

All I can really say is: you can use this right now. Today. All those tasks above? We already did all that. Moreover, you still own the content and the users, we're just the straw that stirs the drink. We're ready to help you launch it today, you know? Just sayin'

-Travis

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ReadSocial in Action. Yeah, the lighting is bad and the camera is basically a cellphone, but that's all the better, cause it's real. Don't you think?