
Hundreds of thousands of people read novels on Instagram - kawera
https://www.fastcompany.com/90392917/the-next-big-reading-platform-may-be-instagram
======
_august
Try it yourself, it’s pretty cool like an instant ebook.

Metamorphosis:
[https://www.instagram.com/s/aGlnaGxpZ2h0OjE3ODUyMTE0ODA2MzA3...](https://www.instagram.com/s/aGlnaGxpZ2h0OjE3ODUyMTE0ODA2MzA3Njgy?igshid=1s219emfk4x6l&story_media_id=1927598101380494085)

The Raven:
[https://www.instagram.com/s/aGlnaGxpZ2h0OjE3OTYyMTk5MTcwMTYz...](https://www.instagram.com/s/aGlnaGxpZ2h0OjE3OTYyMTk5MTcwMTYzNDYy?igshid=pwpd1dm8qi10&story_media_id=1902019574360286528)

Alice In Wonderland:
[https://www.instagram.com/s/aGlnaGxpZ2h0OjE3OTQ0MTEwMzE5MTg4...](https://www.instagram.com/s/aGlnaGxpZ2h0OjE3OTQ0MTEwMzE5MTg4NDkx?igshid=a9zsopdzuodn&story_media_id=1851468855614171599)

—

I find the top comment quite cynical, it’s literally the same as reading text
on an ebook or even paperback. IMO once you get engrossed in a story the
medium falls away. It’s cool that people are experimenting with a platform in
a way maybe not originally intended, but that’s the beauty of it. No one can
really foresee all the things you can do with a new platform/technology.

~~~
jobigoud
> it’s literally the same as reading text on an ebook or even paperback

Not literally. On an ebook I can add inline notes and then jump to them later
(I occasionally do this when a passage sparks an idea). And search text.

~~~
criddell
What ebook reader are you using? I've added a few notes to some books on my
Paperwhite Kindle and it's a terrible experience. I have no idea where the
notes are and, depending on the document type, it may or may not be synced to
all the places I read Kindle books.

The iPad with the Pencil seems promising. If I could underline and scribble
notes (that are recognized and indexed) it might be good enough to move me off
of Kindle and their great e-ink screens. I have no idea if iBooks does that
though.

------
jasode
Since a few comments mention the superiority of "real books", maybe those with
that opinion see Instagram as downgrading the reading experience.

For some perspective, keep in mind that many famous novels were originally
magazine or newspaper installments.[0]

Therefore, reading works like Dumas' "Count of Monte Cristo", Dostoevsky's
"Crime & Punishment", or Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina" \-- in consolidated book
form -- is the _incorrect method of reading their words_. And the correct way
to read Charles Dickens is in partial installments to stop at the cliffhanger
and then wait a month to resume the story.

Or maybe, the Instagram'ing of novels can be seen as harmless re-serializing
of books.

An aside about what "reading" really is...

Some think that _listening_ to the words of a book (e.g. Audible) instead of
seeing the words with eyeballs is also _not really reading_. Does this also
mean that blind people are never really "reading" unless their fingers are
touching braille?

But the reverse can be true. We're consuming "The Iliad" incorrectly if
reading it as a book since it was originally orally transmitted instead of
written down.

For some, the physical medium _defines_ what reading is. I don't agree with
that but it's clear some really have rigid opinions about how the authors'
words are supposed to enter our brains.

EDIT ADD: similar bite-sized reading behavior on smartphones in China
explained by a16z Connie Chan. It's not too different from Charles Dickens
serializations in the 19th century. Deeplink about China's mobile book economy
at 6m25s:
[https://youtu.be/78pLIj4xeVs?t=6m25s](https://youtu.be/78pLIj4xeVs?t=6m25s)

[0] [https://booksonthewall.com/blog/serial-novel-a-brief-
history...](https://booksonthewall.com/blog/serial-novel-a-brief-history/)

~~~
saalweachter
You will find a certain argument that you are "reading" _all_ poetry wrong, if
you are not reading it aloud.

~~~
jasode
Likewise, "The Iliad" with its repetitions of text that look tedious in
written form is really a long poem that's meant to be performed and heard. The
oral repetitions are a memory aid for the audience listening to the story.
Some historians say the itinerant wanderer would also have a lute to pluck
some music accompaniment to add drama to key parts of the poem.

~~~
shantly
The Iliad has nothing on other literature from around the same time and
earlier, most of which is Egyptian or Babylonian / Akkadian. The latter,
especially, I find damn near un-readable for that reason. What little Ancient
Egyptian storytelling we have is similar, lots of repetition probably to make
it easier to recite from memory, but (massive exception of Gilgamesh
aside—holy crap it's good) they're better storytellers so it's a bit more
tolerable.

------
jordanpg
Am I the only one that's skeptical of the claim that "300,000 people are
reading books this way"?

That there are 300k people who are now suddenly "reading" books that have been
available in a _huge_ variety of formats in the public domain for years
because they show up on Instagram?

Show me the actual usage data. How many of these 300k got past page 3?

The design is nice, the presentation is good, yes, but I doubt very seriously
the existence of this hidden, neglected population of bibliophiles.

~~~
jasode
_> now suddenly "reading" books that have been available in a huge variety of
formats in the public domain for years because they show up on Instagram?_

I can't speak to the 300k number but an increase in readership is plausible
because I saw how _reducing friction_ to consume a book can massively change
reading habits. E.g. my friend with the new Kindle finally got around to
reading the classics like "Madame Bovary" and "Anna Karenina" because she
could get ebooks from Amazon for $0.00 (or sometimes a tiny amount like 95
cents).

The previous existence of those public domain books on Gutenberg Project's
website was irrelevant since the HTML or TXT files weren't easy to consume
unless one printed them out on a printer.

Yes, public domain books have always been sold on Amazon as real paper books
but the shipping would end up being $3.99 even for a book costing $0.00.

The Kindle e-reader was the technology to enable her to read public domain
books for free with minimum friction. (Even a trip to the public library to
check out and later return a physical book for "free" is too much of a
hassle.)

I can see how this NYPL project is trying to make a friction-free book reading
experience for Instagram users who already own their smartphones. No Kindle
purchase necessary. (In my other comment, I mention how millions of Chinese
people are reading books on their smartphones.)

~~~
jordanpg
I hear you, but I remain skeptical about any sort of significant uptick in
adoption of, not of e-reading in general, but of _these particular books_.

You mention a friend who read chose to read "Madame Bovary" and "Anna
Karenina" upon discovering a cheap and convenient e-book format. Those books
are classics in the Western Canon, yes, but they are also slogs, by some
measures.

The other thing that happened, and continues to happen in parallel with the
explosion of e-reading tech, is an explosion of other things to (copyrighted)
read, written in the modern colloquial, (perhaps more) relevant to modern
times. The rise of the tepid, self-published novel on Amazon is the best
example of this.

I can believe that there is a latent desire out there for more good books to
read or a cool new tech to use to read them, but I doubt very much that very
old books in the public domain sate that thirst in any significant way. I
think your friend is in the minority.

------
DJHenk
Wow, talking about putting the horse behind the carriage.

So, people don't have the concentration to read a book anymore. But instead of
fixing the cause of this, whatever it is, we mangle them through platforms
that weren't designed for it and if there is some success, we claim that
people are reading again. Of course they are not. It's a whole different
experience. It can be nice and it can add to the experiences that we already
knew, but it is definitely not the same as reading a book. It is more like
seeing the movie adaptation of the book.

Books have remained the same for centuries. If people are suddenly unable to
read them anymore, it is far more likely that it is the people that need
"fixing", and not the books.

~~~
rolltiide
> it can add to the experiences that we already knew, but it is definitely not
> the same as reading a book. It is more like seeing the movie adaptation of
> the book.

In full text, in text only form, verbatim

Explain the distinction you are making again and why do you feel it is a
productive distinction to make?

~~~
silveroriole
The article says there are animations which “bring the story to life”. Normal
adult readers don’t need pictures and animations to aid
engagement/understanding - people who are more used to watching movies or
reading series of tweets/reaction gifs might.

~~~
LandR
I'm reading a book right now, as an adult, that has illustrations in it.

What harm? It's a little extra fun that the words are wrapped in some lovely
illustrations by a well respected illustrator.

It's not detracting from the novel in the least.

------
mileycyrusXOXO
Here's [1] NYPL's website for the project.

The site details out the motivation behind the project, provides a list of
novels released and to come. It is also loaded with eye candy from the
gorgeous animation and design examples.

Not to turn the subject to IP but I think this is a wonderful example of what
can be done with the public domain:

>Each book so far in the Insta Novels Collection has come from the public
domain.

[https://www.instanovels.work/](https://www.instanovels.work/)

~~~
ja27
It wouldn't be hard to push these to Snapchat too and maybe get kids to read
[and get off my lawn].

------
foobarbecue
Another example of how technologically inferior platforms can be successful
given the right exposure. (this is obviously inferior because the user cannot
reflow the text, change font color, copy paste, highlight, etc.)

~~~
danielnixon
Nor in some cases even read at all [https://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-
WCAG20/visual-audio-cont...](https://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-
WCAG20/visual-audio-contrast-text-presentation.html)

------
mikece
Isn’t this exactly what Steve Jobs hoped would happen when iBooks was
introduced? That a new, multimedia format where books “come to life with
animations and video” would be born... granted he hoped such creators would do
this for the ipad’s ebooks and not Insta-Face-App.

------
meshenna
A part of me is appalled, but another is amused and intrigued. "The street
finds its own uses for things," I guess.

------
thrower123
I'm intrigued, and yet horrified by the amount of bandwidth that all of these
images must be consuming.

~~~
rolltiide
The CDN has already cached it for the company and the users are probably on
wifi so why think about it

Even if it was cellular...

~~~
TeMPOraL
Well, there's _taste_ , and I agree with GP here - I too find such things
distasteful. It's not much waste in the grand scheme of things, but it's still
ridiculously wasteful, and the more wastefulness is accepted, the more it adds
up everywhere.

------
phillipamann
It is likely that if you did an experiment that compared retention and
understanding of reading with the real books and these Instagram Stories, the
readers of real books would trounce the Instagram readers. I suppose that
something is better than nothing but at a certain point, I also wonder, what
is the point of doing this? I wonder how many Instagram readers will drop
their habits and read more? I also wonder how many of these readers will
finish the books? I didn't see that information presented in the article.

~~~
dawg-
Any given Instagram reader may not have read a real book in their life - or
maybe they are avid readers who read constantly. All the same, there will
always be readers and non-readers.

Literary snobs today imagine a past world where everybody was constantly
discussing the finer points of the classic masterpieces every day of their
lives. In reality only about 12% of the global population in 1820 was
_literate_. And that's just baseline, not to speak of people who actually
spent time reading difficult, thoughtful, full-length books.

Thoreau has a great passage in Walden (published in the 1850s) where he
complains about people knowing how to read, yet spending their time reading
garbage romance novels instead of classics like the Iliad. I think the
complaint of people "reading books" on Instagram comes from the exact same
place. It's a timeless problem, which is not really a problem.

Even when global literacy reaches 100%, there will still be a very small
percentage of people who are hardcore readers. There is a certain kind of
person who will sit down with a big heavy paper book and read it cover to
cover, and they are not a common species among humans. It's something you are
born with, or something that you gain in very early childhood anyway, and
nothing Instagram does will ever change that.

So there's really no use in complaining about it one way or the other.
Instagrammers will instagram. Some of them will read real books too, and
others will not.

------
gitgud
This also reminds me of this company [1] _wavve_ , which I first noticed on
Indie Hackers. They basically convert podcasts to videos for social media and
generate huge (Stripe-verified) profits from providing the service.

This just shows the enormity of the Instagram user-base. A tiny fraction of
niche users on Instagram can add up to a massive market...

[1]
[https://www.indiehackers.com/product/wavve](https://www.indiehackers.com/product/wavve)

------
nealrs
If you'd like to do something similar, but for your blog (or any website
really) -- I wrote an app that produces segmented videos in both Instagram
Story / square aspect ratios. It's called StoryScroll =>
[https://neal.rs/app](https://neal.rs/app)

Here's a demo video =>
[https://youtu.be/u1k1JZtDzuU](https://youtu.be/u1k1JZtDzuU)

------
ereyes01
Ever since I read the A Song of Ice and Fire books on my phone from plain text
files I acquired (don't ask me how) on a reader app, paper books feel like a
much more inferior experience. On my phone, I can control the text size, the
font, can control the screen brightness, have a night mode option, and can
read in the dark. Furthermore, my phone is always with me, so I don't need to
carry around an additional device or a book.

------
ga-vu
So if you miss a story, you miss a page. :)))

This is actually... kinda useless.

~~~
jaifraic
For 300.000 people it is... kinda useful. And the books are shared via the
highlight function of Instagram. It's like stories, but they aren't deleted
after 24h. They stay in your profile and can be watched again and again until
you delete them.

------
recori
Really excited about these kind of steps taken towards multimedia literature
and digitalization of it. For quite some time, school textbooks and literature
has been brought to touch screen devices or otherwise digitalized on other
devices as-is - pages with text as we have known it for long time. Modern tech
could enable much more deeper and interactable content for both studies and
leisure reading.

~~~
greggman2
and yet in my experience most HNers and similar tech communities want all docs
in plain text, tex, or very simple markdown

suggest that Wikipedia would be better if it's physics articles had
interactive simulations or that stack overflow's failed docs initiative should
make room for working examples and get downvoted into oblivion

~~~
tomashubelbauer
We've seen some interactive education projects on HN (the famous page on
raytracing, the one where there's everything about curves, many audio-based
projects) and they have had great reception. I think the reason why most devs
still prefer plain-text resources over anything else is two-fold: interactive
stuff tends to be less standard (because there isn't really a good standard
for it) and harder to version than text, but also for interactive
education/documentation tools to be accepted, they need to meet a certain high
bar of quality, otherwise they are just eye-candy with insufficient value-add.
When developing such tools, I believe there is a point of immersion after
which they clearly become superior to text materials to most people including
otherwise text-heavy devs, but if an author of such interactive tool fails to
reach this level, their work is seen as a distraction, because you still need
to refer elsewhere. Stack Overflow's documentation examples (as much as I
really wished the initiative would succeed) were very far from reaching this
bar. They were not organized well, lackluster and were not interactive enough
either.

~~~
maxheadroom
> _I think the reason why most devs still prefer plain-text resources over
> anything else is..._

I think you missed a vital reason and that is portability and sharability. No
one needs to install anything special to read or edit a text file.

It's the digital equivalent of paper and pen when you think about it and that
makes it a popular platform for _everyone_ to be able to consume it.

Plus, back when we were all old and dinosaurs roamed the Earth, the text file
was the lightest/smallest way to transfer data (read: ideas) between
computers.

The practice/behaviour saturated the industry so much that many readmes of
today are _still_ on text files.

Maybe there's a correlation to the real world, where we're definitely more apt
to consume mediums that don't have superfluous data points than the
words/ideas that they're meant to convey? Maybe I'm just talking out of my
ass?

Either way, plain-text resources are the easiest to create, share, and consume
because there's almost a universality in the standard for text files (except
the EOL and CRLF but that's more of an inconvenience than anything).

~~~
tomashubelbauer
This is what I meant by standardization but I used a wrong term. I completely
agree with you. At the basis, there will always need to be plain text, which
should result in a wide variety of viewers and editors becoming available. In
order for interactive visualizations to succeed among software devs, they
can't be a SaaS, they need to become a part of the plumbing.

------
bradezone
There's no way 300000 people are actually reading entire books this way.
Probably not even 3000. They're just clicking/swiping to get thru their entire
stories feed, and these just happen to be in the mix.

------
leggomylibro
These look very cool! They clearly put a lot of thought into the design, and
it's always nice to see these sorts of novel efforts to encourage reading.

