Forwarding to the public list too.
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Tilman Bayer tbayer@wikimedia.org Date: Sun, Aug 16, 2015 at 9:40 PM Subject: Interesting WSJ article: "The Rise of Phone Reading" To: Internal communication for WMF Reading team reading-wmf@lists.wikimedia.org
Some food for thought - it's probably not entirely surprising in 2015, but this article collects a lot of information showing that the assumption "few people want to read long texts on a phone" is too simplistic: http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-rise-of-phone-reading-1439398395
TLDR from our perspective: Smartphones are becoming a major venue for reading ebooks, ie. really long-form texts, more than was predicted a few years ago. ("In a Nielsen survey of 2,000 people this past December, about 54% of e-book buyers said they used smartphones to read their books at least some of the time. That’s up from 24% in 2012.") One reason is convenience - “The best device to read on is the one you have with you"/"Most people who read on their phones toggle back and forth between devices, using whichever is closest at hand when opportunity strikes". Another is that screen sizes are getting bigger. Also has some bits about how book publishers react to this, which may of course be less applicable to us.
[...]
Definitely interesting… not too surprising that there has been a bump in mobile reading over that past few years - seeing as everyone's phone screens are twice as big as they were in 2012. Anecdotally, I am more likely to read on my phone now than I was a few years ago (I always used to reach for my iPad before I had an iPhone 6).
When reviewing these stats, we should keep in mind the primary use case of Wikipedia - a reference. While it is true that some will read significant portions of a book or a blog posts on their phones, most people aren't looking to read a Wikipedia article from top-to-bottom. Some will read a section or 2, while many others will only need to ready the first paragraph to get the answer that they need.
So even as the number of "long form readers" increases on mobile, that might not directly translate into more "full article Wikipedia readers" on mobile.
I definitely believe we should continue improving our mobile reading experience - it will only become more important as these numbers increase, however we shouldn't draw to many conclusions from this article as the content being discussed is quite different.
On Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 12:31 PM, Tilman Bayer tbayer@wikimedia.org wrote:
Forwarding to the public list too.
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Tilman Bayer tbayer@wikimedia.org Date: Sun, Aug 16, 2015 at 9:40 PM Subject: Interesting WSJ article: "The Rise of Phone Reading" To: Internal communication for WMF Reading team reading-wmf@lists.wikimedia.org
Some food for thought - it's probably not entirely surprising in 2015, but this article collects a lot of information showing that the assumption "few people want to read long texts on a phone" is too simplistic: http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-rise-of-phone-reading-1439398395
TLDR from our perspective: Smartphones are becoming a major venue for reading ebooks, ie. really long-form texts, more than was predicted a few years ago. ("In a Nielsen survey of 2,000 people this past December, about 54% of e-book buyers said they used smartphones to read their books at least some of the time. That’s up from 24% in 2012.") One reason is convenience - “The best device to read on is the one you have with you"/"Most people who read on their phones toggle back and forth between devices, using whichever is closest at hand when opportunity strikes". Another is that screen sizes are getting bigger. Also has some bits about how book publishers react to this, which may of course be less applicable to us.
[...]
Tilman Bayer Senior Analyst Wikimedia Foundation IRC (Freenode): HaeB
Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
On Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 9:13 PM, Corey Floyd cfloyd@wikimedia.org wrote:
Definitely interesting… not too surprising that there has been a bump in mobile reading over that past few years - seeing as everyone's phone screens are twice as big as they were in 2012. Anecdotally, I am more likely to read on my phone now than I was a few years ago (I always used to reach for my iPad before I had an iPhone 6).
When reviewing these stats, we should keep in mind the primary use case of Wikipedia - a reference. While it is true that some will read significant portions of a book or a blog posts on their phones, most people aren't looking to read a Wikipedia article from top-to-bottom. Some will read a section or 2, while many others will only need to ready the first paragraph to get the answer that they need.
I definitely think we need to test this assumption. I wonder if this is something the QuickSurvey could be used to measure e.g. a simple question "What are you here for?" (although results might get skewed by quick lookups having no time to do a survey). I'm not sure it is. Personally I read much more than the lead section (I tend to use Google quick facts for those quick lookups).
Thoughts welcomed on how we could work this out.
So even as the number of "long form readers" increases on mobile, that might not directly translate into more "full article Wikipedia readers" on mobile.
I definitely believe we should continue improving our mobile reading experience - it will only become more important as these numbers increase, however we shouldn't draw to many conclusions from this article as the content being discussed is quite different.
On Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 12:31 PM, Tilman Bayer tbayer@wikimedia.org wrote:
Forwarding to the public list too.
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Tilman Bayer tbayer@wikimedia.org Date: Sun, Aug 16, 2015 at 9:40 PM Subject: Interesting WSJ article: "The Rise of Phone Reading" To: Internal communication for WMF Reading team reading-wmf@lists.wikimedia.org
Some food for thought - it's probably not entirely surprising in 2015, but this article collects a lot of information showing that the assumption "few people want to read long texts on a phone" is too simplistic: http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-rise-of-phone-reading-1439398395
TLDR from our perspective: Smartphones are becoming a major venue for reading ebooks, ie. really long-form texts, more than was predicted a few years ago. ("In a Nielsen survey of 2,000 people this past December, about 54% of e-book buyers said they used smartphones to read their books at least some of the time. That’s up from 24% in 2012.") One reason is convenience - “The best device to read on is the one you have with you"/"Most people who read on their phones toggle back and forth between devices, using whichever is closest at hand when opportunity strikes". Another is that screen sizes are getting bigger. Also has some bits about how book publishers react to this, which may of course be less applicable to us.
[...]
Tilman Bayer Senior Analyst Wikimedia Foundation IRC (Freenode): HaeB
Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
-- Corey Floyd Software Engineer Mobile Apps / iOS Wikimedia Foundation
Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
Hi,
This is an interesting discussion. Imo, the unique selling point of Wikipedia is the editing. A known fact is that mobile data rates are expensive in many countries. Also known is the number of smartphones existing and the number of computers.
Connecting the above with my own behaviour is sufficient to conclude three important use cases ;-) first, read on the phone. Currently good enough. Second, write on the phone, current support close to catastrophic. Third, save articles to take away, ie offline. Non existing.
Therfore I think measuring what is used, as well measuring what would be needed is quite pointless. The result would be that things working sufficiently well will be overweight, kind of self fulfilling prophecy.
Best, Rupert
On Aug 18, 2015 9:46 PM, "Jon Robson" jdlrobson@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 9:13 PM, Corey Floyd cfloyd@wikimedia.org wrote:
Definitely interesting… not too surprising that there has been a bump in mobile reading over that past few years - seeing as everyone's phone
screens
are twice as big as they were in 2012. Anecdotally, I am more likely to
read
on my phone now than I was a few years ago (I always used to reach for
my
iPad before I had an iPhone 6).
When reviewing these stats, we should keep in mind the primary use case
of
Wikipedia - a reference. While it is true that some will read
significant
portions of a book or a blog posts on their phones, most people aren't looking to read a Wikipedia article from top-to-bottom. Some will read a section or 2, while many others will only need to ready the first
paragraph
to get the answer that they need.
I definitely think we need to test this assumption. I wonder if this is something the QuickSurvey could be used to measure e.g. a simple question "What are you here for?" (although results might get skewed by quick lookups having no time to do a survey). I'm not sure it is. Personally I read much more than the lead section (I tend to use Google quick facts for those quick lookups).
Thoughts welcomed on how we could work this out.
So even as the number of "long form readers" increases on mobile, that
might
not directly translate into more "full article Wikipedia readers" on
mobile.
I definitely believe we should continue improving our mobile reading experience - it will only become more important as these numbers
increase,
however we shouldn't draw to many conclusions from this article as the content being discussed is quite different.
On Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 12:31 PM, Tilman Bayer tbayer@wikimedia.org
wrote:
Forwarding to the public list too.
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Tilman Bayer tbayer@wikimedia.org Date: Sun, Aug 16, 2015 at 9:40 PM Subject: Interesting WSJ article: "The Rise of Phone Reading" To: Internal communication for WMF Reading team reading-wmf@lists.wikimedia.org
Some food for thought - it's probably not entirely surprising in 2015, but this article collects a lot of information showing that the assumption "few people want to read long texts on a phone" is too simplistic: http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-rise-of-phone-reading-1439398395
TLDR from our perspective: Smartphones are becoming a major venue for reading ebooks, ie. really long-form texts, more than was predicted a few years ago. ("In a Nielsen survey of 2,000 people this past December, about 54% of e-book buyers said they used smartphones to read their books at least some of the time. That’s up from 24% in 2012.") One reason is convenience - “The best device to read on is the one you have with you"/"Most people who read on their phones toggle back and forth between devices, using whichever is closest at hand when opportunity strikes". Another is that screen sizes are getting bigger. Also has some bits about how book publishers react to this, which may of course be less applicable to us.
Rupert,
I might suggest that a point in time analysis can sometimes create the self fulfilling prophecy issue you talk about, although sometimes it's good to simply verify if assumptions hold (you know, the whole "everyone knows that!" kind of stuff). What I find to be interesting in the case of thinking forward is the trajectory of the answers. If we're seeing users are losing interest or gaining interest in something, it may behoove action.
I agree editing is compelling, although there are lots of compelling things to go after for better reading/consumption/learning experiences.
Regarding editing, there's a bit of discussion starting from https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2015-July/082571.html about future plans on mobile web editing. As is you can get a VE experience on tablet in the mobile website. But it's generally wikitext for mobile devices otherwise.
One note on saving - the Wikipedia apps have save-for-offline capabilities for Wikipedia; there some projects like Kiwix that focus on offline content as well. At times people have voiced interest in more advanced offline capabilities for the Wikipedia apps.
-Adam
On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 3:12 PM, rupert THURNER rupert.thurner@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
This is an interesting discussion. Imo, the unique selling point of Wikipedia is the editing. A known fact is that mobile data rates are expensive in many countries. Also known is the number of smartphones existing and the number of computers.
Connecting the above with my own behaviour is sufficient to conclude three important use cases ;-) first, read on the phone. Currently good enough. Second, write on the phone, current support close to catastrophic. Third, save articles to take away, ie offline. Non existing.
Therfore I think measuring what is used, as well measuring what would be needed is quite pointless. The result would be that things working sufficiently well will be overweight, kind of self fulfilling prophecy.
Best, Rupert
On Aug 18, 2015 9:46 PM, "Jon Robson" jdlrobson@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 9:13 PM, Corey Floyd cfloyd@wikimedia.org
wrote:
Definitely interesting… not too surprising that there has been a bump
in
mobile reading over that past few years - seeing as everyone's phone
screens
are twice as big as they were in 2012. Anecdotally, I am more likely
to read
on my phone now than I was a few years ago (I always used to reach for
my
iPad before I had an iPhone 6).
When reviewing these stats, we should keep in mind the primary use
case of
Wikipedia - a reference. While it is true that some will read
significant
portions of a book or a blog posts on their phones, most people aren't looking to read a Wikipedia article from top-to-bottom. Some will read
a
section or 2, while many others will only need to ready the first
paragraph
to get the answer that they need.
I definitely think we need to test this assumption. I wonder if this is something the QuickSurvey could be used to measure e.g. a simple question "What are you here for?" (although results might get skewed by quick lookups having no time to do a survey). I'm not sure it is. Personally I read much more than the lead section (I tend to use Google quick facts for those quick lookups).
Thoughts welcomed on how we could work this out.
So even as the number of "long form readers" increases on mobile, that
might
not directly translate into more "full article Wikipedia readers" on
mobile.
I definitely believe we should continue improving our mobile reading experience - it will only become more important as these numbers
increase,
however we shouldn't draw to many conclusions from this article as the content being discussed is quite different.
On Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 12:31 PM, Tilman Bayer tbayer@wikimedia.org
wrote:
Forwarding to the public list too.
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Tilman Bayer tbayer@wikimedia.org Date: Sun, Aug 16, 2015 at 9:40 PM Subject: Interesting WSJ article: "The Rise of Phone Reading" To: Internal communication for WMF Reading team reading-wmf@lists.wikimedia.org
Some food for thought - it's probably not entirely surprising in 2015, but this article collects a lot of information showing that the assumption "few people want to read long texts on a phone" is too simplistic: http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-rise-of-phone-reading-1439398395
TLDR from our perspective: Smartphones are becoming a major venue for reading ebooks, ie. really long-form texts, more than was predicted a few years ago. ("In a Nielsen survey of 2,000 people this past December, about 54% of e-book buyers said they used smartphones to read their books at least some of the time. That’s up from 24% in 2012.") One reason is convenience - “The best device to read on is the one you have with you"/"Most people who read on their phones toggle back and forth between devices, using whichever is closest at hand when opportunity strikes". Another is that screen sizes are getting bigger. Also has some bits about how book publishers react to this, which may of course be less applicable to us.
Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
We have to stop thinking in such strict boundaries though. Yes, we are lacking in editing support on mobile, but just plugging those holes, is not actually going to solve the problem, because editing on a mobile device will still be sub par no matter what you do. I think most people will come away disappointed in what that effort will bring us.
Some important things that I have learned in mobile is that engagement is everything and flexibility is key. The user has dozens of apps screaming for his attention. There has to be a reason for a user to open the app. A trigger. Traditionally a user looking something up, but Google is taking even that from us. And once that app is open, you have to trigger the user to make sure he keeps it open, just ever so slightly then the user had planned to keep it open... And if there is something that he wants to do, but he doesn’t want to right now, then he needs to be able to carry over that context that he currently has to another time/place/device/databundel, without even having to think about it.
I’m thinking more along the lines of: * As a mobile user, you answer a quick question on a topic (1/5 reads?). The answers feeds an analytics system that then builds a queue for a desktop editor to do some work that is more suited for a larger screen. * You are reading on your mobile and u use something like Apple’s Continuity to start editing on a Desktop * The system knows you read an article on Space Shuttle Atlantis, and will move space related topics higher into your ‘work/gnome' queue on desktop/mobile. * You flip through some photo’s on mobile and select the one you like best, again feeding other systems that build galleries or a lead image etc. * Review edits/vandalism in the app, and have visual representations of how “successful” you and fellow app users are at fending off the ‘bad guys’. You have defended 15 articles and helped 2000 readers. The vandalisme pressure is down 5% since you started helping out. graph. * You are on desktop and the system asks if you can help expand the metadata of the image that you earlier picked as a favorite when flipping through a set on mobile. * You receive a push message that a certain article in the purview of the wikiproject that your are part of, is trending. Clicking it opens the app and the changes scroll by and you can mark ones that are suspicious. Editors on larger screens get these fed into their ‘investigation queue’. * Highlight a spot in an article on mobile allows you to point out that it requires a citation. A desktop user that is reading the same article will see a popup in his screen noting this ‘event’ and can immediately help fulfill the request. * The user on mobile get’s a push notification that his request was fulfilled if that happened within the past hour.
Basically, for every single action, think of a trigger that will move him one step into the next direction. And as a platform, be where the user is. Move with him from desktop to couch, from mobile to busstop. An immersive experience.
Don’t get me wrong, all the other stuff is needed, but it’s all prep in order to make ^^ work and only THEN will we be able to truly make headway into the mobile space for editors I suspect.
DJ
On 19 aug. 2015, at 00:12, rupert THURNER rupert.thurner@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
This is an interesting discussion. Imo, the unique selling point of Wikipedia is the editing. A known fact is that mobile data rates are expensive in many countries. Also known is the number of smartphones existing and the number of computers.
Connecting the above with my own behaviour is sufficient to conclude three important use cases ;-) first, read on the phone. Currently good enough. Second, write on the phone, current support close to catastrophic. Third, save articles to take away, ie offline. Non existing.
Therfore I think measuring what is used, as well measuring what would be needed is quite pointless. The result would be that things working sufficiently well will be overweight, kind of self fulfilling prophecy.
Best, Rupert
On Aug 18, 2015 9:46 PM, "Jon Robson" <jdlrobson@gmail.com mailto:jdlrobson@gmail.com> wrote:
On Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 9:13 PM, Corey Floyd <cfloyd@wikimedia.org mailto:cfloyd@wikimedia.org> wrote:
Definitely interesting… not too surprising that there has been a bump in mobile reading over that past few years - seeing as everyone's phone screens are twice as big as they were in 2012. Anecdotally, I am more likely to read on my phone now than I was a few years ago (I always used to reach for my iPad before I had an iPhone 6).
When reviewing these stats, we should keep in mind the primary use case of Wikipedia - a reference. While it is true that some will read significant portions of a book or a blog posts on their phones, most people aren't looking to read a Wikipedia article from top-to-bottom. Some will read a section or 2, while many others will only need to ready the first paragraph to get the answer that they need.
I definitely think we need to test this assumption. I wonder if this is something the QuickSurvey could be used to measure e.g. a simple question "What are you here for?" (although results might get skewed by quick lookups having no time to do a survey). I'm not sure it is. Personally I read much more than the lead section (I tend to use Google quick facts for those quick lookups).
Thoughts welcomed on how we could work this out.
So even as the number of "long form readers" increases on mobile, that might not directly translate into more "full article Wikipedia readers" on mobile.
I definitely believe we should continue improving our mobile reading experience - it will only become more important as these numbers increase, however we shouldn't draw to many conclusions from this article as the content being discussed is quite different.
On Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 12:31 PM, Tilman Bayer <tbayer@wikimedia.org mailto:tbayer@wikimedia.org> wrote:
Forwarding to the public list too.
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Tilman Bayer <tbayer@wikimedia.org mailto:tbayer@wikimedia.org> Date: Sun, Aug 16, 2015 at 9:40 PM Subject: Interesting WSJ article: "The Rise of Phone Reading" To: Internal communication for WMF Reading team <reading-wmf@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:reading-wmf@lists.wikimedia.org>
Some food for thought - it's probably not entirely surprising in 2015, but this article collects a lot of information showing that the assumption "few people want to read long texts on a phone" is too simplistic: http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-rise-of-phone-reading-1439398395 http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-rise-of-phone-reading-1439398395
TLDR from our perspective: Smartphones are becoming a major venue for reading ebooks, ie. really long-form texts, more than was predicted a few years ago. ("In a Nielsen survey of 2,000 people this past December, about 54% of e-book buyers said they used smartphones to read their books at least some of the time. That’s up from 24% in 2012.") One reason is convenience - “The best device to read on is the one you have with you"/"Most people who read on their phones toggle back and forth between devices, using whichever is closest at hand when opportunity strikes". Another is that screen sizes are getting bigger. Also has some bits about how book publishers react to this, which may of course be less applicable to us.
Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l