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There’s something magical with books…I mean “paper books” - having it in your hand, dog earing, writing down notes or the questions arising in your head, underlining with a pen instead of tapping and selecting, or even seeing them around at home...
There are many reasons that books, as the physical object, stayed almost the same during hundreds of years while everything, every medium, every interface changes constantly…And that still most of the people prefer reading on paper…
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/04/printed-books-vs-e-books-which-is-the-most-popular/
Just as is with reading, highlighting or writing down notes on a real paper book feels more intuitive than typing with the keyboard. Also it is found that writing your notes by hand on physical paper leads to improved learning and memorizing.
https://neurosciencenews.com/hand-writing-brain-activity-18069/
If you are one of those paper book lovers, and if you also love taking notes, highlighting;
which brings up the first set of points👇 this project aims to change;
Searching through your highlights or notes
There’s something magical with books…I mean “paper books” - having it in your hand, dog earing, writing down notes or the questions arising in your head, underlining with a pen instead of tapping and selecting, or even seeing them around at home...
There are many reasons that books, as the physical object, stayed almost the same during hundreds of years while everything, every medium, every interface changes constantly…And that still most of the people prefer reading on paper…
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/04/printed-books-vs-e-books-which-is-the-most-popular/
Just as is with reading, highlighting or writing down notes on a real paper book feels more intuitive than typing with the keyboard. Also it is found that writing your notes by hand on physical paper leads to improved learning and memorizing.
https://neurosciencenews.com/hand-writing-brain-activity-18069/
If you are one of those paper book lovers, and if you also love taking notes, highlighting;
which brings up the first set of points👇 this project aims to change;
Searching through your highlights or notes
You underlined, highlighted or dog eared the parts important to you. Great, but how do you find them when you need to…You can’t search with filters or keywords in moments like “I remember I had highlighted a part in this book which would help me now, but where?” What if you need to browse through not one but multiple books..
You can’t add tags to correlate or browse things later, unless you get very creative with colored post-it’s.
Keeping a copy separate from the physical book
What if you don’t own the book or prefer to keep it clean? Yes, you can write down on a piece of paper, take a photo, or use an app to select the parts to save etc.. Not easy and too much interruption.
Also isn’t it easier having it always with you, digitally accessible, any moment you need the thing inside a book..
Recalling
Often you don’t turn back to your highlights and notes after you finish a book. But as scientifically proved, revisiting information over time is the best way to grow and retain your knowledge with a long-lasting memory.
Revisiting things you captured in various books is not easy. Having them all at your disposal for whenever you need, or being able to set what & when you would like to be remembered, would allow you to actually learn and retain them.
Let’s look at these actions in general, whether it’s an ebook or paper book.
And start with the second set of points👇 this project aims to deal with, by connecting these seemingly unrelated sets;
Spreading the knowledge
It’s when you find useful information, feel an emotion, get inspired, excited or curious; when you find a value in what you’ve just read, that you want to capture and keep it. As a highlight, a note, a question, an action item, anything you put out there.
These can be really powerful, not only for you as the reader but for others, too. This video below by Tim Ferriss is a good example. And the comments below it are a good indication for how much his audience is interested in what he reads and finds value in.
Giving back to the author
There’s no direct mechanism to allow that the more value the reader gets from a book the more they give back to the author.. It can be any type of value, it might be a quote creating an emotion, an insight or some knowledge.
Some platforms use “popular highlights” to market the book (let’s not forget their part in the sells), and there are apps which show you popular highlights of the books you might be interested in, ultimately to increase the app’s usage. Yes, these can help the author to promote the book and maybe sell more, or increase their reputation. But they aren’t direct ways between the reader and the author.
Provenance
With social networks becoming a big part of our lives, even reading a book becomes a social activity. For some, when they share what they read and engage with people, it creates a motivation for reading more.
For others it’s just the urge of sharing the emotion they feel when reading a quote…Or an insight, thought, information they think it would be useful for others as well.
On the other side, looking at the number of followers of this “Book quotes” account, seems like people love quotes, short bits of knowledge, motivational, moving phrases..
Whatever the case is, this benefits both the reader, and the people they share with…But not always does the author get the credit they deserve. Many times quotes are shared on Twitter without the author being mentioned.
Even if it’s mentioned, wouldn’t they deserve more for the value they had created?
Here comes the fun part where all of these points get connected.
A pen which is designed and built specifically for paper book lovers who underline, highlight, take notes while reading;
with its dedicated app and integration with blockchain, to get everything saved forever as theirs.
to easily search, recall, share
to earn by spreading the knowledge while giving back to the author
Imagine having a magical pen with which you can underline the parts, write down notes just as you would do with a regular pen. Except it scans and saves those lines, quotes, your notes, even drawings..
It saves those important things while you can immerse in your book without any other device..
Whenever connected, its app understands what book you’re reading, creates a folder for it, organize everything in a smart way.
It lets you edit, add tags, organize further if you want to..
It lets you set a widget or notification with the parts you want to be reminded.
(Or you might think; I’m tired of hearing the word NFT, tell me what’s the utility?)
Note: Now if transforming physical to digital is possible in an intuitive way, everything below could be done regardless of what you prefer, a paper book, an ebook, an article…
Let’s start with a short reminder of what NFT is and could do in this context. An NFT (Non-fungible token) is a record of ownership for a unique item, encoded as a token into a blockchain. And this unique item can be almost anything.
So it can tokenize anything, and make buying, selling, trading it more efficient - while reducing the probability of fraud.
“…tokens are digital primitives that can be generalized to represent almost anything-- money, art, photo, music, text, code, game items, control, access, and whatever people dream up in the future” , “…Users can now have a persistent inventory of objects in their wallet that they take from one app to another. If their objects increase in value, the user gets the upside. This is a big change from Web 2 where the upside was mostly captured by tech companies.” - Chris Dixon
Coming back to our context; you could save all your highlights, notes, drawings as a package (or separately), so that they’re permanently stored on the blockchain as yours.
You could mint them as an NFT.. You could make them available for anyone to buy, if you want to, all of which would give back and support the author, as well - more on this a bit later -
An excerpt, a quote from a book, or a note on it, have a special value be it practical or emotional…
If blockchain allows to save your valuable assets in a way which is;
permanent
authentic
decentralized
tokenized (up to your imagination how to use them)
tradable ,
what’s a better way to save them?
What one captures as important, inspirational, informational can be so for others too... The added thoughts or questions can be powerful and even deepen what's in the book itself..
There would be especially a demand if these come from readers who have a big audience interested in their thoughts, knowledge, insights, the most important parts of a book “according to them".
Also, if one is more interested on a specific author rather than a specific reader, they could have the highlights & notes from all the books of the author, coming from different perspectives of different readers.
Each time a value is captured, the author would get back, too. Said in another way; each time an NFT (let’s call it Child NFT) is shared or minted or sold, the author would earn a percentage.
The more value the author creates for the people - in the form of a saved or shared quote, or in the form of a note, question inspired by the book’s content - the more value they can get back.
And they can do so just by being part of the ecosystem, with their crypto wallets connected and their identities verified as the author.
They can choose to offer their book as an NFT as well (a Parent NFT) which then could bring more royalties with each re-sell.
Child and Parent NFT’s can be associated and have a link available to each other. This can allow both to see the highlights and notes in their context, learn more or read the whole book, and also get other’s highlights and notes of a book.
Authors could provide a digital copy of their book for free, as well. The digital version would improve the experience with the product (allow to automate some features) which in turn would make it more likely that their book being read and shared in this ecosystem, and bring more value back to them as the creator.
I’m a former Product Designer at Apple. I’m passionate about exploring new products and features using new technologies, designing experiences which bring new utilities and joy in the most intuitive way.
While nothing mentioned above is impossible, there are still many open questions to answer and work to do to bring this vision to life. And it requires time and effort. It requires funding to be able to dedicate all the time and focus. It requires funding for the manufacture and the development.
This is also an experiment to see if this vision could be realized with the support of people who are excited about such a product and its blockchain-powered ecosystem.
Maybe it could even help to make people read more, write more, share more, think more…
While the first edition of this project is focused on books and their ecosystem, it could be extended to other creative mediums. The possibilities are endless for both the creator and the audience.
The goal is to bring the best of physical and digital.
The goal is to create objects that allow you to read, write, listen, observe, think the way you love, without compromising the precious physical experiences.
You underlined, highlighted or dog eared the parts important to you. Great, but how do you find them when you need to…You can’t search with filters or keywords in moments like “I remember I had highlighted a part in this book which would help me now, but where?” What if you need to browse through not one but multiple books..
You can’t add tags to correlate or browse things later, unless you get very creative with colored post-it’s.
Keeping a copy separate from the physical book
What if you don’t own the book or prefer to keep it clean? Yes, you can write down on a piece of paper, take a photo, or use an app to select the parts to save etc.. Not easy and too much interruption.
Also isn’t it easier having it always with you, digitally accessible, any moment you need the thing inside a book..
Recalling
Often you don’t turn back to your highlights and notes after you finish a book. But as scientifically proved, revisiting information over time is the best way to grow and retain your knowledge with a long-lasting memory.
Revisiting things you captured in various books is not easy. Having them all at your disposal for whenever you need, or being able to set what & when you would like to be remembered, would allow you to actually learn and retain them.
Let’s look at these actions in general, whether it’s an ebook or paper book.
And start with the second set of points👇 this project aims to deal with, by connecting these seemingly unrelated sets;
Spreading the knowledge
It’s when you find useful information, feel an emotion, get inspired, excited or curious; when you find a value in what you’ve just read, that you want to capture and keep it. As a highlight, a note, a question, an action item, anything you put out there.
These can be really powerful, not only for you as the reader but for others, too. This video below by Tim Ferriss is a good example. And the comments below it are a good indication for how much his audience is interested in what he reads and finds value in.
Giving back to the author
There’s no direct mechanism to allow that the more value the reader gets from a book the more they give back to the author.. It can be any type of value, it might be a quote creating an emotion, an insight or some knowledge.
Some platforms use “popular highlights” to market the book (let’s not forget their part in the sells), and there are apps which show you popular highlights of the books you might be interested in, ultimately to increase the app’s usage. Yes, these can help the author to promote the book and maybe sell more, or increase their reputation. But they aren’t direct ways between the reader and the author.
Provenance
With social networks becoming a big part of our lives, even reading a book becomes a social activity. For some, when they share what they read and engage with people, it creates a motivation for reading more.
For others it’s just the urge of sharing the emotion they feel when reading a quote…Or an insight, thought, information they think it would be useful for others as well.
On the other side, looking at the number of followers of this “Book quotes” account, seems like people love quotes, short bits of knowledge, motivational, moving phrases..
Whatever the case is, this benefits both the reader, and the people they share with…But not always does the author get the credit they deserve. Many times quotes are shared on Twitter without the author being mentioned.
Even if it’s mentioned, wouldn’t they deserve more for the value they had created?
Here comes the fun part where all of these points get connected.
A pen which is designed and built specifically for paper book lovers who underline, highlight, take notes while reading;
with its dedicated app and integration with blockchain, to get everything saved forever as theirs.
to easily search, recall, share
to earn by spreading the knowledge while giving back to the author
Imagine having a magical pen with which you can underline the parts, write down notes just as you would do with a regular pen. Except it scans and saves those lines, quotes, your notes, even drawings..
It saves those important things while you can immerse in your book without any other device..
Whenever connected, its app understands what book you’re reading, creates a folder for it, organize everything in a smart way.
It lets you edit, add tags, organize further if you want to..
It lets you set a widget or notification with the parts you want to be reminded.
(Or you might think; I’m tired of hearing the word NFT, tell me what’s the utility?)
Note: Now if transforming physical to digital is possible in an intuitive way, everything below could be done regardless of what you prefer, a paper book, an ebook, an article…
Let’s start with a short reminder of what NFT is and could do in this context. An NFT (Non-fungible token) is a record of ownership for a unique item, encoded as a token into a blockchain. And this unique item can be almost anything.
So it can tokenize anything, and make buying, selling, trading it more efficient - while reducing the probability of fraud.
“…tokens are digital primitives that can be generalized to represent almost anything-- money, art, photo, music, text, code, game items, control, access, and whatever people dream up in the future” , “…Users can now have a persistent inventory of objects in their wallet that they take from one app to another. If their objects increase in value, the user gets the upside. This is a big change from Web 2 where the upside was mostly captured by tech companies.” - Chris Dixon
Coming back to our context; you could save all your highlights, notes, drawings as a package (or separately), so that they’re permanently stored on the blockchain as yours.
You could mint them as an NFT.. You could make them available for anyone to buy, if you want to, all of which would give back and support the author, as well - more on this a bit later -
An excerpt, a quote from a book, or a note on it, have a special value be it practical or emotional…
If blockchain allows to save your valuable assets in a way which is;
permanent
authentic
decentralized
tokenized (up to your imagination how to use them)
tradable ,
what’s a better way to save them?
What one captures as important, inspirational, informational can be so for others too... The added thoughts or questions can be powerful and even deepen what's in the book itself..
There would be especially a demand if these come from readers who have a big audience interested in their thoughts, knowledge, insights, the most important parts of a book “according to them".
Also, if one is more interested on a specific author rather than a specific reader, they could have the highlights & notes from all the books of the author, coming from different perspectives of different readers.
Each time a value is captured, the author would get back, too. Said in another way; each time an NFT (let’s call it Child NFT) is shared or minted or sold, the author would earn a percentage.
The more value the author creates for the people - in the form of a saved or shared quote, or in the form of a note, question inspired by the book’s content - the more value they can get back.
And they can do so just by being part of the ecosystem, with their crypto wallets connected and their identities verified as the author.
They can choose to offer their book as an NFT as well (a Parent NFT) which then could bring more royalties with each re-sell.
Child and Parent NFT’s can be associated and have a link available to each other. This can allow both to see the highlights and notes in their context, learn more or read the whole book, and also get other’s highlights and notes of a book.
Authors could provide a digital copy of their book for free, as well. The digital version would improve the experience with the product (allow to automate some features) which in turn would make it more likely that their book being read and shared in this ecosystem, and bring more value back to them as the creator.
I’m a former Product Designer at Apple. I’m passionate about exploring new products and features using new technologies, designing experiences which bring new utilities and joy in the most intuitive way.
While nothing mentioned above is impossible, there are still many open questions to answer and work to do to bring this vision to life. And it requires time and effort. It requires funding to be able to dedicate all the time and focus. It requires funding for the manufacture and the development.
This is also an experiment to see if this vision could be realized with the support of people who are excited about such a product and its blockchain-powered ecosystem.
Maybe it could even help to make people read more, write more, share more, think more…
While the first edition of this project is focused on books and their ecosystem, it could be extended to other creative mediums. The possibilities are endless for both the creator and the audience.
The goal is to bring the best of physical and digital.
The goal is to create objects that allow you to read, write, listen, observe, think the way you love, without compromising the precious physical experiences.
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