Chalk another one up for web based applications. If you’re already familiar with this type of application and its potential benefits, then go ahead and bookmark this nifty little site right now. Speed reading programs are designed to take a body of text, such as this blog post, and display a few words of it at a time in exactly the same spot on your screen. Most of them have the ability adjust the rate at which these sentence snippets are displayed along with various other features. The idea is that you should be able to progressively increase the number of words displayed each minute, thus reading more text in less time.
Spreeder is certainly not ground breaking but it does illustrate the unmistakable shift from desktop based applications towards web based apps. Here are some of the benefits of a web based world:
- Nothing to download or install
- Doesn’t take up hard drive space when it’s not being used
- Accessible from any computer with a browser
- Updates are painless and immediate
- Usually has fewer options which can make it easier to use
- The default price is free
Granted some feature-heavy programs like Photoshop will not be appearing in a browser near you any time soon, but there is already basic movie editing “software” available online at Jumpcut, for example. From Microsoft Office to Google Docs and browser bookmarks to Del.icio.us, the speed and convenience of the online world is most certainly on its way.
