{"id":689,"date":"2014-10-31T23:21:54","date_gmt":"2014-10-31T23:21:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/77.104.180.154\/~andrewdo\/blog\/?p=689"},"modified":"2017-09-20T11:31:10","modified_gmt":"2017-09-20T11:31:10","slug":"the-joy-of-readmill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2014\/10\/31\/the-joy-of-readmill\/","title":{"rendered":"The joy of Readmill"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"It has been over six months since I stopped using Readmill and I still think about it regularly. If you are not aware, Readmill was a social reading platform that let you track and log your reading, make highlights in ebooks (or if you were really<\/em> enthusiastic type them in manually from physical books), \u2018follow\u2019 other readers, and have conversations about each other’s readings and highlights. They also made a simply beautiful ebook reader for iOS and Android. When they announced<\/a> that they had sold the company to Dropbox and would be shutting it down I was heartbroken, an emotion that I don\u2019t think I had ever experienced with a service on the web. They admitted<\/a> that they had failed to create a sustainable platform and even if their (generally enthusiastic) users started to pay for the service they would not be able to make it viable. All of their work had a touch of class to it and this included the point where they left us\u2014each reader was given the ability to download a beautiful Readmill \u2018story\u2019 containing details of all of the books they have read and highlights they have made and \u2018liked\u2019. I still go back to mine<\/a> frequently when I want to refer to a particular quote.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

For me, the joy of Readmill came from the conversations that a simple highlight could spark. I followed a large number of users, almost all of whom I didn\u2019t know before I started using the service. The resulting activity feed showing all of the books they were reading and the highlights they were making was always worth scrolling through and I spent many hours browsing these<\/a>\u00a0as well as contributing my own<\/a> as I went along.<\/p>\n

Up until the point that I found Readmill I had always considered myself to be a reader but in truth I spent many more hours in front of Twitter<\/a> or Instapaper<\/a> than I did with books. Readmill changed all that for me and soon became my favourite activity. It got me reading books again\u2014a lot of books\u2014which is probably the highest praise I can give it.<\/p>\n

Since Readmill disappeared I\u2019ve been searching for a replacement with limited success. The Marvin<\/a> iOS app was the obvious place to go to read my large backlog of ePub books; it\u2019s a brilliant reading app but it completely lacks the social features and website that made Readmill so great. Glose<\/a> looks interesting and is one to keep an eye on\u2014it has social features and looks very similar to Readmill but at the moment you can only read books available on their store and not upload your own. I\u2019ve also been trying out The Pigeonhole<\/a> which takes things in a slightly different direction\u2014you sign up to a book which is then delivered to you over a number of weeks in the form of \u2018staves\u2019 along with additional related content such as videos, author insights etc. and the ability to discuss the staves with other readers. Publishing books as a series is very reminiscent of how Charles Dickens\u2019 works were originally released in periodicals and indeed they are making Great Expectations available in this format for free so you can try them out.<\/p>\n

The folks at Readmill had really made something special and it was such a shame it didn\u2019t work out. Six months later I am still in contact with a few\u00a0of the ex-users as we stumble across new reading services and platforms\u2014it’s as if we\u2019re all trying to find a new place to live. Sadly, we haven\u2019t found anywhere quite as nice just yet.<\/p><\/div>\n

It has been over six months since I stopped using Readmill and I still think about it regularly. If you are not aware, Readmill was a social reading platform that let you track and log your reading, make highlights in ebooks (or if you were really enthusiastic type them in manually from physical books), \u2018follow\u2019 […]<\/div>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-689","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-books","7":"h-entry","9":"hentry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6418,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2020\/10\/15\/6418\/","url_meta":{"origin":689,"position":0},"title":"Going all in on Readwise.io\u2026","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"15 October 2020","format":"status","excerpt":"Going all in on Readwise.io for a while. Spent a bit of time this evening prepping and uploading my old Readmill highlights to the service, so they will get played back to me over time. So grateful that the Readmill team made such a classy exit and I had the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Snippets"","block_context":{"text":"Snippets","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/snippets\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6307,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2020\/08\/25\/6307\/","url_meta":{"origin":689,"position":1},"title":"I\u2019ve been trying out Readwise\u2026","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"25 August 2020","format":"status","excerpt":"I\u2019ve been trying out Readwise to re-surface my Kindle highlights. It\u2019s good, but it still feels like a poor cousin to the Readmill experience. I think of this passage often when I feel annoyed, particularly at the kids. The annoyance is mine to control and not their fault.","rel":"","context":"In "Snippets"","block_context":{"text":"Snippets","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/snippets\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/c6599bf242b14c70ba8bad61d835c441.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/c6599bf242b14c70ba8bad61d835c441.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/c6599bf242b14c70ba8bad61d835c441.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/c6599bf242b14c70ba8bad61d835c441.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/c6599bf242b14c70ba8bad61d835c441.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6453,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2020\/10\/28\/6453\/","url_meta":{"origin":689,"position":2},"title":"Met with the founders of\u2026","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"28 October 2020","format":"status","excerpt":"Met with the founders of Readwise yesterday to talk about my experience of using the platform, and the Readmill-shaped hole in my life. There is so much more to Readwise than first meets the eye. I'm now in the process of consolidating all of my highlights and quotes there.","rel":"","context":"In "Snippets"","block_context":{"text":"Snippets","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/snippets\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6463,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2020\/11\/02\/weeknotes-88-red-cross-on-the-door\/","url_meta":{"origin":689,"position":3},"title":"Weeknotes #88 \u2014 Red cross on the door","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"2 November 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"This week was half term here in our part of the UK, which means that my wife and both of our children had the week off at home. Having taken barely any time off myself since Christmas, I booked Wednesday to Friday as holiday so that we could go out\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Weeknotes"","block_context":{"text":"Weeknotes","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/weeknotes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/DraggedImage.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/DraggedImage.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/DraggedImage.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/DraggedImage.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/DraggedImage.jpeg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/DraggedImage.jpeg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4782,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2018\/10\/05\/goodbye-path\/","url_meta":{"origin":689,"position":4},"title":"Goodbye Path","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"5 October 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Interesting to get an email from Path this morning announcing that they are shutting down. Although sad for the users, it\u2019s lovely when a company exits gracefully; Readmill was the best example of this where they created a whole downloadable set of HTML pages to tell your individual story of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Web"","block_context":{"text":"Web","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/web\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/D78F1538-10F7-43CE-B82E-25B64C846029.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/D78F1538-10F7-43CE-B82E-25B64C846029.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/D78F1538-10F7-43CE-B82E-25B64C846029.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/D78F1538-10F7-43CE-B82E-25B64C846029.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4158,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2018\/05\/27\/weeknote-19-night-on-my-side\/","url_meta":{"origin":689,"position":5},"title":"Weeknote #19 \u2014 Night on my side","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"27 May 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"These weeknotes are primarily a tool for me to gather my thoughts and reflect on the past week. After many attempts at private journaling, the discipline of getting some structured thoughts down each week has been good for me1. I\u2019ve been reflecting on how getting the posts out publicly changes\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Weeknotes"","block_context":{"text":"Weeknotes","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/weeknotes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Image-27-05-2018-09-18.gif?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=689"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":700,"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689\/revisions\/700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}