Newsletter 004 || Rabbithole Reader + Tales From Alaska

Happy 5th of the month to all who celebrate. Nikhil had his bachelor party in Alaska for 10 days (!!) and Jon was there for the whole trip. It was a great adventure and a nice reprieve from the summertime heat; it also means our work time got cut down. And yet — we’re back with another demo that we’re pretty excited about. This one builds on the previous demo by adding a reading mode, and we’d love to hear your thoughts on what features you wished it had. Email us at nikhil@5×5.studio and jon@5×5.studio with feedback.

Last month our demo, Rabbithole, was a companion for your podcasts and youtube videos that automatically extracts interesting people, place, things and concepts into cards and summaries as you listen and stops where you paused. It was useful for the range-y episodes that meandered and maybe touched unfamiliar topics; the summary-thus-far feature also helped when jumping in and out of the podcast over hours or days.

Some of you replied asking for a reading version of this. We wanted one too. So, as always, take a look at the demo here first. Read anything on the web, or try one of our suggestions. Come back after you’ve tried it for a breakdown of the key features.

OK — what did you think?

As we built this demo over the last few days, it became clear that there were a ton of possibilities for features, and that reading called for a fairly different UX than listening.

For starters, when writing, the author is careful to provide context for every new character, idea, or institution being written about. They’re less likely to have stray references the way that a podcaster might in the flow of an interview. This led us to prioritize the “story so far” view as perhaps the most useful and novel feature. When you leave a page for ~30 seconds and return back, you’ll see this summarization pop up that reminds you what you’d read so far, along with key figures or timelines depending on the context. You can generate a summary page at any point by clicking the pill on screen.

Visually, having cards pop up while reading an essay is distracting. We initially started by having cards emerge in the margins as they were identified, but moved toward the “hint”-based UI we have now, with extractions being underlined. These call attention subtly to important people, places, and things, and when clicked allow for deeper exploration.

You’re able to highlight text, too, and can specify your intent with the highlight. Sometimes you’re just saving the text because it calls out to you; but sometimes you’re looking to define or verify or elaborate upon something. We ask you to specify your intent when you highlight text. If you click on your highlighted text later, the intent you provided will customize what you see on the summary card that appears upon click.

We all have our routines with reading on the web and mobile, and with that comes a high bar to clear for changing behaviors. There seems to be a powerful learning companion ready to unlock, which we’re circling here, but we’d love to hear what it would take to make the UX so good that you’d actually use this every day.

Our hunch is that it needs to be something that doesn’t require remembering to go to a site to use. On desktop that might look like a Chrome extension but — we need a reality check — how many of you actually use extensions? We do, but sometimes we think we live in a bubble.

On mobile, the most likely solution is, unfortunately, an app. The upside is that an app would also handle podcasts, videos, and whatever other media might benefit from Rabbithole.

Before we go too deep down this, ahem, rabbithole ourselves, give us some feedback on the proofs of concept these last two weeks!

Nikhil chose to do his bachelor party in Alaska, and for 10 days at that. Jon was there the whole time, and a handful of other 5x5 contributors were in and out over the course of the trip.

We saw moose, humpback whales, sea otters, puffins, and eagles. We ate freshly caught (by us) salmon, reindeer sausage, and more halibut than we’ve had the rest of the year combined. We trekked to a hidden hut high up in the mountains where it was still snowing, pulled the clearest ice directly out of glacial waters, and drank “duck fart” shots — apparently Anchorage’s signature drink.

Alaska was as epic, as much of an outdoors paradise, and as culturally interesting as we were hoping. 10/10 highly recommend. Here are some favorite spots (but not comprehensive — ask us and we’ll share more!)

Outdoors:

Alaska has range. Oceans, fjords, mountains, glaciers, even rainforests abound. We barely scratched the surface of all the outdoor wonders, but our backpacking trek at Mint Hut to start the trip got us hooked despite the terrible weather and steep ascents.

Food:

Anchorage is waaaay more diverse than any of us imagined. Chalk that up to ignorance. We had a Vietnamese seafood boil that nearly transported us to Crawfish and Noodles in Houston and fresh catch fish and chips every time we had the slightest craving. Pro tip: if you see seafood chowder on a menu in Anchorage, get it!

Bars:

There’s no shortage of bars in Anchorage. Yet, nearly everyone we asked for recommendations told us to go to Chilkoot Charlie’s. It did not disappoint. Within moments of walking into Chilkoot, we met Jason, one of the owners. He took us on a tour through the 10 bars that all connect in a labyrinthine setup, with hidden passages and themed rooms one after another. We may not remember every detail that night, but we can certainly recommend a visit.

Until the next time!

Nikhil & Jon