Thanks for posting.

I can't think of a better goal for a developer than to turn the Web on its head. You're right that the meat of this story is in the reasoning behind people's initial reactions to Readability. There really is something shocking about seeing a piece of content completely isolated and suddenly being able to read through an entire article without 20 other things vying for your attention. For most people I think that's a completely new experience.

I can also see how readability would be a godsend for the visually impaired. One of my first thoughts after “wow, this actually works”, was that it would be a great help to the elderly and to anyone who has trouble reading off the screen. Sort of like the large print book of the Web. If it was widely used It might also help to shift people's online reading habits from skimming text to actually engaging with more of the work.

Great job with the app. I think it's generating some really interesting and necessary conversations.

I'm from Arc90 – the people behind Readability.

As a shop that enjoys causing a ruckus on the Web, we'd pretty much jump on every opportunity to, as you say, “end the Internet as we know it.” We're not sure if a Readability browser would do that.

I think what content creators need to ask themselves is: why did something like Readability resonate so loudly for people? What's broken that people reacted this way?

In our opinion, that's where the conversation should start.

Another fact worth noting – we've got tons of emails from people with psychological and visual impairments that view Readability as a Godsend. Again, content creators should be thinking about their audiences.

In other words – we'd love for the Web to render Readability irrelevant. That would be a very good day.

Rich Ziade
Arc90

Thanks for posting.

I can't think of a better goal for a developer than to turn the Web on its head. You're right that the meat of this story is in the reasoning behind people's initial reactions to Readability. There really is something shocking about seeing a piece of content completely isolated and suddenly being able to read through an entire article without 20 other things vying for your attention. For most people I think that's a completely new experience.

I can also see how readability would be a godsend for the visually impaired. One of my first thoughts after “wow, this actually works”, was that it would be a great help to the elderly and to anyone who has trouble reading off the screen. Sort of like the large print book of the Web. If it was widely used It might also help to shift people's online reading habits from skimming text to actually engaging with more of the work.

Great job with the app. I think it's generating some really interesting and necessary conversations.

I'm from Arc90 – the people behind Readability.

As a shop that enjoys causing a ruckus on the Web, we'd pretty much jump on every opportunity to, as you say, “end the Internet as we know it.” We're not sure if a Readability browser would do that.

I think what content creators need to ask themselves is: why did something like Readability resonate so loudly for people? What's broken that people reacted this way?

In our opinion, that's where the conversation should start.

Another fact worth noting – we've got tons of emails from people with psychological and visual impairments that view Readability as a Godsend. Again, content creators should be thinking about their audiences.

In other words – we'd love for the Web to render Readability irrelevant. That would be a very good day.

Rich Ziade
Arc90