4 ms·

BeeLine Reader: Read Faster and Easier, All Day Long

4 points by spking 4y ago

iamevn 4y ago
It's a little funny to me that the website of a product which strives to make reading easier is unreadable on mobile (firefox 110 on android). The text overflows off the side of the screen with no margins on any side and the site prevents me from zooming in or out. The actual thing (coloring lines of text to make the end of one line match the start of the next) is conceptually simple but really effective.
- gnicholas 4y ago
  BeeLine founder here — just saw this thread. Thanks for the feedback. I've no idea how this issue would have cropped up, since our devs tested on Android and I tested on iOS. I've never seen this before, but I can believe it would happen. Out of curiosity, what's the resolution on your device?
hbcondo714 4y ago
I'm not seeing any screenshots or videos of this product. I do see on their partners page a link to a blog that uses BeeLine which you can experience for yourself by clicking on "ENHANCE READABILITY": https://unreasonablegroup.com/articles/how-to-host-a-community-meal/ https://unreasonablegroup.com/articles/how-to-host-a-communi...
- gnicholas 4y ago
  The website is itself the demo. You can use the color buttons at the top of the screen to customize how the text is colored.
pull_my_finger 4y ago
How do products like this monetize? Seems like a trap to a user that's conditioned to "if something is free you're the product". Extensions like this generally request the total access permission in order to change page content. Are they selling information about your browsing habits I guess?
- gnicholas 4y ago
  BeeLine founder here. We do not monetize user data at all! The B2C tools (browser extensions, document converters) were just a way for us to prove up demand, in order to help us license our technology to content platforms. We do charge for our B2C tools, but just a few dollars per month. The vast bulk of our revenue comes from B2B licensing, from customers like Blackboard and digital textbook platforms.

4 points by spking 4y ago

It's a little funny to me that the website of a product which strives to make reading easier is unreadable on mobile (firefox 110 on android). The text overflows off the side of the screen with no margins on any side and the site prevents me from zooming in or out. The actual thing (coloring lines of text to make the end of one line match the start of the next) is conceptually simple but really effective.

gnicholas 4y ago
BeeLine founder here — just saw this thread. Thanks for the feedback. I've no idea how this issue would have cropped up, since our devs tested on Android and I tested on iOS. I've never seen this before, but I can believe it would happen. Out of curiosity, what's the resolution on your device?

hbcondo714 4y ago

I'm not seeing any screenshots or videos of this product. I do see on their partners page a link to a blog that uses BeeLine which you can experience for yourself by clicking on "ENHANCE READABILITY": https://unreasonablegroup.com/articles/how-to-host-a-community-meal/ https://unreasonablegroup.com/articles/how-to-host-a-communi...

gnicholas 4y ago
The website is itself the demo. You can use the color buttons at the top of the screen to customize how the text is colored.

pull_my_finger 4y ago

How do products like this monetize? Seems like a trap to a user that's conditioned to "if something is free you're the product". Extensions like this generally request the total access permission in order to change page content. Are they selling information about your browsing habits I guess?

gnicholas 4y ago
BeeLine founder here. We do not monetize user data at all! The B2C tools (browser extensions, document converters) were just a way for us to prove up demand, in order to help us license our technology to content platforms. We do charge for our B2C tools, but just a few dollars per month. The vast bulk of our revenue comes from B2B licensing, from customers like Blackboard and digital textbook platforms.