Spreed makes reading RSS feeds faster, stressful

Web-based RSS feed aggregator Spreed is casual reading's worst enemy. A speed-reader extraordinaire like Robert Scoble might enjoy it as a way to dig through even more stories a day, but at its heart it's kind of like visiting an aquarium with one of those moving sidewalks; you're still seeing what you came there to see--you just don't have the luxury of taking your time.

Time is actually the key focus of Spreed. It centers on a speed-reading player that will only show you three or four words of a story at a time, and in rapid succession. As your reading skills improve you can ramp up the number of words per minute it shows you, letting you speed-read any story at whatever level you're capable of. Sure you could do this on your own, but Spreed forces you to look at nothing else but the words, making reading a distraction-free, yet slightly anxiety-inducing experience.

Like Netvibes, My Yahoo and others, Spreed has a built-in directory of RSS feeds you can subscribe to. What makes it neat is that it gives you a estimation of how long it will take to go through a story based on its length and your current WPM setting. It also shows you the time it thinks it would take you to read the story when not in speed-read mode, along with a link in between the two to jump to the site itself. You can even plug in Microsoft Word documents, effectively making it a free speed-reading training tool.

In addition to the desktop flavor, Spreed has an iPhone variation that will let you access your bookmarked feeds and read them using the same speed viewer. It too has a quick WPM selector in case you want to dial it up a notch.

Ideally in the future Spreed could come out with a browser plug-in or bookmarklet that will take any story or RSS entry and run it through its player, letting you use a more capable RSS reader like Google Reader or Bloglines to add in some of the features it's missing like link sharing, folders, and favoriting.

[via SimpleSpark]

Spreed takes full RSS feeds and makes them easy to parse with a speed-reading player. You can tweak how many words per minute you want to read at and it will adjust accordingly. (click to enlarge)

(Credit: CNET Networks)

[jtbloom1]

This is not a really new idea...it is just a new implementation. I can't remember the exact name, but there was a Windows Mobile website, a University project I believe, called Buzz or something like Buzz. It did the same thing with all of the top new stories. I used it on my PPC 6700 for quite awhile.

[canucktrainer]

Like always, there has to be someone who tries to bring a GREAT story and a GREAT application and try to bring it down, you couldnt even remember the name of the appl, great impact it made eh!....the fact that it is in the iphone and it is being used by many users now....makes it new. Maybe the concept is not new but the application is AWESOME and it's great....JUST ADMIT iT!!!!!

[Spreedinc]

It's true, we're not the first to develop something like this. In fact, some of what we do is based on over 30 years of technology, starting with the development of Rapid Serial Visualization Protocol (RSVP) (which is what BuddyBuzz used). However, we do believe that we're one of the few or only ones who have ever developed an algorithm that properly breaks down sentences into clusters recognizing grammar, syntax and certain elements of eye science. The result is that the information flows much more fluidly and testing has demonstrated greater reading speeds, comprehension and product acceptance.

Furthermore, we suspect we're the only ones who continue to develop tools that leverage the power of the computer to make the reading experience more efficient (we are working on an intelligent auto-summary tool as well as a very nifty sematic indexer).

Yes, this may seem more stressful for first time users, however we encourage you to sit back relax, let the words come to you and don?t worry if you miss a word or two. In the end you will go through the article faster and increase your retention. After three or four articles this new way of reading will start feeling natural. Try a number of different speeds to find your comfort level, start slow, go fast and then find somewhere in between.

Thanks for the post and happy Spreeding. I look forward to hearing everyones feedback!

[Becktemba]

Wow that gave me a headache! I'll stick with the Newspaper format RSS feed aggregator over at the Feedjournal: http://www.Feedjournal.com or check out the Feed Newspaper at: http://www.Libertynewsprint.com