The Safari Reader Arms Race
Last week I caught a lot of heat for my column about Apple’s Weapon of Mass Destruction. The column seemed to go a bit viral and I got quite a lot of visitors, many of whom were angry. They felt that they were entitled to a quiet reading experience, totally free from web clutter and ads.
However, what many of these folks did not realize was that they were not looking for web content, what they really wanted to experience was an ebook. Currently most ebooks (as far as I’ve seen) do not contain advertisements. If you read them on the Kindle or in an app on the iPhone/iPad/Whatever, you use a more or less standard sort of interface.
I love ebooks; I read a lot of them via the Kindle and iBooks apps on my iPad, and even my ancient Kindle. Ebooks can be a wonderfully relaxing reading experience. I love to kick at night and read a book on my iPad. It helps me mellow out and relax after a long day, and I go to sleep thinking about whatever just happened in the story I was reading. Ebooks are one of the best reasons for owning a tablet device.
Reading an ebook can be a wonderfully relaxing experience.
The Glorious Chaos of the Web!
While I very much appreciate a quiet reading experience for ebooks, web pages are not ebooks. The web was never meant to provide a reading experience similar to an ebook or print book. The web is color and chaos, with sites having different interfaces and navigation. There is no standard uniformity to web site experiences, nor should there be. Things are wild and woolly on the web, you never know what you are going to get when you visit a site.
The glorious chaos of an article on the web.
Apple, by adding Reader to Safari 5, is essentially trying to force an ebook style interface onto the web reading experience. It will never work out over the long haul because web publishers will resist and the end result will be an arms race, with publishers on one side and Apple on the other.
The Arms Race Begins
Already some folks are analyzing how Reader works and are busy plotting to prevent their content from loading in it:
Safari 5 reader displays the pages of a site without advertising, apparently a way for Apple to go after Google, the Adsense service of which monetizing the majority of websites.
This contradicts the rules of a site when conditions prohibit the modification of pages before their display by any external tool.
That leaves webmasters to find a way to undo this tool to maintain their advertising revenues.
Apple has not made the tool itself, it only integrated an open source software, Readability. The source code is here.
Actually the Readability team has initially praised Apple for its product before realizing that it had used its own code.
(A tip of my hat to my reader Thinol for alerting me to that page in the comments in last week’s article.)
If publishers keep trying to block Reader, and Apple keeps patching it so it works again, things may just get uglier and uglier. It would not surprise me if lawsuits start happening at one point or another.
It is similar to the anger that some publishers feel when it comes to ad blockers. A while back, there was an attempt by one site to block Firefox users (since they were using a popular ad blocker) and that, in turn, pissed off many people:
“A site has sprung-up recently called “Why Firefox is Blocked.” They claim that webmasters should block all users running the Firefox web browser (sorry, morons, but Firefox is king) because of the AdBlock Plus extension. They claim that users of the extension are thieves because they use websites while blocking the advertisements. By some weird logic, they believe that webmasters should be given the option of blocking AdBlock. Seeing as they aren’t, they think that Firefox itself should be blocked.”
I would really hate to see this sort of thing happen.
However, it was easier for publishers to deal with the ad blocker extensions, since users had to install themselves. Safari Reader takes it to a completely new level since it is built-in to the browser.
Each publisher is going to have to figure out how he or she wants to deal with browser features like Reader. Some may opt to go to war with Apple, in any way they can. While others may take this opportunity to make changes.
How Should Publishers Respond?
I have decided to take a different path in response to Reader. Yeah, I could try to block it or whatever. But why bother? I’d just end up going tit for tat with Apple’s Safari developers, and that would just help them because then they could market their browser by saying “Hey, don’t like ads? Use our browser instead of Firefox, IE or Chrome!”
Some of the folks who posted comments in last week’s column actually made some great points about readability (others were simply angry Apple Cultists with way too much time on their hands). I thank you if you were one of the ones that took the time to post meaningful thoughts and feedback. Constructive criticism is always welcome and appreciated.
I’ve made a few changes to my blogs, based on some of those ideas. Improving readability is certainly a noble goal, and one that we should all strive for. Whether or not it will be enough to discourage people from using Safari Reader is debatable. I’m not sure that all publishers can attain the goal of making their sites function like an ebook. But I guess we’ll find out as time goes by.
If you’re a publisher who is angry about Safari Reader, consider making changes to your site that help deprive Apple of the ability to increase its share of the browser market. Serving your readers by improving your site’s readability might just be the best way to strike back at Steve Jobs, and his evil empire.
What’s your take on this? Do you think web pages should be just like ebooks? Tell me in the comments.
(128 votes, average: 1.23 out of 5)
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The utility of Safari Reader is apparent when you come across a website with far more advertising than content, or an article that is shamelessly split across multiple pages to maximize page and ad views. I’d say sites like that are far more harmful to the web than Safari Reader. In a crass attempt to increase profits and marketability, far too many sites feel that is it their duty to artificially inflate the amount of time and clicks it takes to read something, for the express purpose of having more ad views. Your own splitting of this short article into three pages is a perfect example. Rather than complain about people reading your articles the way they want to read them, why not put that energy into producing content that people will want to read?
I don’t use Safari Reader, mind, I use the Readability service which predates Safari, and (I think) does a much better job, and is cross-browser comptable.
Hi Richard,
Did you read the last page of this column? I have made it easy for folks to read the article any way they want to read it. And they can even convert it to a PDF file to take with them and read it later on.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with splitting the article into multiple pages. Not everybody wants to read one big, long page. You have anti-clickers (who hate multiple page articles) and you also have anti-scrollers (who prefer content that is broken down into bite-size chunks). You can’t please everybody.
For a good example of what would piss off an anti-scroller, have a look at one of my reviews over on Desktop Linux Reviews. This review is all on one page. Anti-scrollers would NOT like this at all as it is quite a long scroll. Those who aren’t on broadband also wouldn’t like it all loading on one page without warning:
Linux Mint 9 (Isadora)
http://desktoplinuxreviews.com/2010/05/18/linux-mint-9-isadora/all/1/
BTW, Richard, one of the other things about that review is that breaking it up into multiple pages lets folks hop around and read only the sections that interest them. The drop down menu provides easy navigation to the pages they wanted to read while also allowing them to skip the stuff they might not care about (booting, installation, etc.).
So if you step back and think about it, not everybody wants every page of an article put on one page. Especially if it is a long review that involves 25+ screenshots, etc.
@ Jim:
Indeed, I did read the last page of the article. In my opinion, providing a PDF is a mere hack, as is providing a print view, or a “View all” option. Print views should be dead anyway, since all major browser support media-specific stylesheets. Print views are a hack for reading on paper, and are not designed with optimal viewing on a screen. With regards to “skipping around”, if you provide clear enough headers, a reader could easily skim through the page to find what they want. We’re trained from our earliest days of reading, on the printed page, to skim. Why re-invent the wheel?
It strikes me that people who claim users want multiple pages are just trying to hide that “content” creators want multiple page views and ad impressions. Even if your motives are pure, far too many sites use tiny chunks of content spread across multiple pages to drive up their analytics for the benefit of advertisers.
If an article is really too long to read in a single sitting, that’s where services like Instapaper come in, and Instapaper, much like Readability and Safari Reader, also strips out ads—as well as site chrome and other things, to provide a good reading experience. I’m not opposed to advertising on the web, or opposed to making money. I think, however, that far too many of the people complaining about Safari Reader/Readbility/Instapaper/etc, are placing far too high a value on how much money they make from their content, and not the value of the content itself.
Merlin Mann of 43 Folders goes into this far better than I can. (http://www.43folders.com/2009/04/10/free-me)
Rather than complain about readers and companies developing tools to improve the user experience, start making content that people will want to read, and stop trying to impose limitations on people’s preferences on content consumption.
I don’t think it’s any secret, Richard, that publishers need to generate a lot of page views and ad impressions. That’s the basic web business model (for now).
But it’s a bit dangerous to generalize and assume that everybody wants very long reviews or articles to load up on one page, with no warning (especially with a lot of screenshots).
I think I’ve hit all the sweet spots in terms of readability. View All, Print, and PDF give readers the maximum amount of reading flexibility and with no dependency on a particular browser’s features.
It will be interesting to see how publishers react (or if they react at all) to Safari Reader as it is cloned into other browsers.
What do you mean cloned? It’s not as if Safari Reader is a new thing. Readability did it first, if I recall. Instapaper does the same basic thing. Apple is just the first to integrate it, and not even well. (This is coming, I might add, from an Apple partisan. Given the choice, I would and do use Readability.) I encourage you to read Merlin’s piece, especially the bit under “The Lumpen Metrics of Page View Addiction”. That publishers are reacting to Safari Reader in such a way is telling, and I would say confirms Merlin’s point on the addiction people have to page views and ad impressions.
Essentially, the current web business model is, and has been, broken from the get-go. Finally, enough fed up people have thrown enough spanners in the works to gum it up. I’m glad you had the courtesy to add “for now” to your comment on the need for those crutches.
I’ll check out his article, thanks.
By cloned, I mean that a similar feature will probably be built into most browsers. I’m familiar with Readability but how many people use it versus using something like it that is literally built right into the browser?
So when it’s cloned into Firefox, Chrome, IE, etc. I think Reader will have much more of an impact. Not many people use Safari, comparatively speaking.
Jim,
I fear you’re still not getting it. Is using Reader really any different than TV watchers using DVR to fast forward through the commercials? It’s pointless to cry about it. Some of your audience just doesn’t like ads or commercials. If you can’t respect that, at least accept it with some kind of grace.
You hit on something – make your web site more user friendly. But then you seem to imply in your follow up that web sites should be chaotic, and if you don’t like it, read an e-book. The basic web business model you cite is probably not viable in the long term. So cry if you want, or be an innovator. I think you’re on the right track by giving your readers more choices, though. You want to maximize your page views, but you just have to accept the fact that readers want options in how to view your content. Forcing them all to do it one way will simply chase most of them away.
Well, a well-designed web site will make visitors less likely to click on the Reader button. And that doesn’t mean no ads at all. Just use thoughtfully place ads that are themselves well designed. In fact, I read some research that shows simple, static banner ads are more likely to be clicked on that the garish Flash-based ads. I think it shows that readers generally don’t want to be screamed at.
This is why I mentioned graphic design in my comment on the original post. Study. Learn the fundamental of good design. You are right, that you never know what you’re going to bet on the web. But please don’t criticize those who would rather avoid the chaos. The web is all about choice, isn’t it? And those who choose to impose chaos on their visitors should’t be surprised that there are consequences.
On the flip side, web readers should recognize that the collection and distribution of information and knowledge has a cost. Somewhere, in between, there has to be a balance. And I think that’s where we’re at as a society. We’re still in the midst of determining where that balance lies.
Your attacks on Apple continue to sound like sour grapes, however. Discouraging readers from using Safari is certainly your right, but you don’t come off sounding very knowledgeable. Calling Safari clunky and slow is counter to both independent benchmark tests and my own personal experience. I’ve bounce back and forth between using Safari, Chrome, and Firefox, and find myself using Safari almost all the time now. I find it faster and much more intuitive to use, both on my personal Mac and on my Windows machine at work. The only advantage Chrome had was in its ability to crunch Javascript, but Safai 5 has made that speed advantage nil. Firefox is painfully slow compared to both Chrome and Safari. The only advantage Firefox had was in it’s ability to customize. Now, with extensions, Safari is plenty customizable, and there’s little reason for me to use any other browser other than to check for compatibility.
And attacking readers for their sense of “entitlement” won’t garner you more readership, other than to express their outrage, as you well know from your last blog post.
Good luck, Jim. We content producers are all trying to figure this thing out.
Jim,
I think your justifications for breaking up your posts (even very short ones) in several parts are pretty weak, and I have yet to come across someone who prefers an article spread on multiple pages rather than a big one. But it’s easy to test: reverse your approach. Post all your articles in one big page from now on, give readers the option to display them broken in several parts and see how many will pick that option.
I’m betting that button will not get a lot of clicks.
Anyway, this is your blog, far from me the idea to tell you what you should put in, but at least have the intellectual honesty to admit that you’re breaking up your articles for monetization and page view purposes.
Hello Cedric,
Thanks for the feedback, I noted the importance of multi-page articles for revenue reasons as well earlier. But there’s also a danger dumping a reader into a very long article with tons of screenshots with no warning first. See the link to one of my DLR reviews.
I’ve taken steps to give readers the choice in how they wish to view the content. But the default will always be multi-page. It’s up to the reader to decide how he or she wishes to view the content after that.
As far as intellectual honesty goes, I’ve been completely honest about the reasons for breaking articles up, as well as the value it provides to the publisher and some readers who might not appreciate being dumped into a very long review/article with no warning.