In a meeting with Louise Marsland of TrendAfrica last week, we debated whether people actually bookmark/download the content they want to read online, to read later when they're relaxing/offline.
The result? Five out of six said 'No'. I'm no statistician, but that looks like a whopping 83%, based on our tiny group. Granted, we're all frantically busy, actively involved in social media for much of our waking hours and we don't really see ourselves as having any 'downtime' to relax.
But what does that mean for all the services that have been built expressly to allow people the chance to earmark some of the interesting content they're bombarded with all day for 'later reading'?
I'm talking about the likes of Read It Later, which Pocket.com describes as not just a bookmarking service but one that "takes the content you've saved and presents it in a clean, light, readable view."
Or there's Evernote, which had a successful web redesign last week and describes itself on Twitter as "apps and products that make modern life manageable, by letting you easily collect and find everything that matters."
While that's true, there's a big 'but' here: Bizcommunity dubs it "One of the top 'reminder' apps of 2013... You just have to remember to open Evernote."
Walter Pike, CEO and founder at Pike and former Head of Faculty: Marketing and Advertising at the AAA school of advertising, is currently stuck in hospital. As a result, he planned ahead and brought in lots of reading material. Despite the hard copies, he says he also stores lots on Evernote "never to read again... but I suppose I know it's there." Even worse? He managed to smash the screen of his iPad Air, so would have been stuck with offline reading for the rest of his stay if not for his Macbook and iPhone.
I wonder if this wasn't as accidental as it seems. There's simply so much available for online reading that we're turning back to the comfort of offline media. Of turning that physical page, smelling the musty paper smell, getting the tell-tale paper cut.
One of my favourite bloggers, Tanya Kovarsky, who is content manager at Core Group Southern Africa tweeted the following on Monday...
The "problem" with a new pile of reads from @exclusivescoza is deciding what to read first...
The "problem" with a new pile of reads from @exclusivescoza is deciding what to read first.... http://t.co/VgJzDOz0HS
- Tanya Kovarsky (@TanyaKovarsky) October 13, 2014While Kovarsky was being sarcastic with her post, along the lines of "What good book to choose first?", it makes me wonder. There's already so much available offline that - for me at least - the thought of adding a host of online reading options makes me feel a bit panicky. When would I ever get around to reading it all?
Kovarsky agrees that the fact that there's so much already available to read offline makes it challenging. There's just so much already in print that's not going anywhere.
What do you think? Is that the crux of it? Are my online media colleagues and I in the minority here, or do most people actually remember to click back through to what they stored for 'later reading? I'm most interested to find out, please leave your comments below.
