How many times has a friend, coworker or family member sent you an email with an article they think you might like? Maybe the subject line includes, “Check this out” or “This is hilarious.” Although you might be grateful that they were thinking of you, do you find that these articles are competing with specific, urgent requests for your time, and you ultimately decide to not read them at all?
Eric Wuebben and Andrew Courter noticed this problem. They knew there was useful information behind links that their connections shared, but no one had the time to read every link they received.
“We’d read an important or inspiring story and come away buzzing, but there’s no way to quickly share that feeling with others,” Wuebben said. “There’s so much amazing content online and not enough time to consume it.”
Wuebben and Courter are solving this problem through Highly, a desktop, mobile and tablet app that allows a user to digitally highlight text in online articles and share the Highly link into their Twitter, email, Facebook, LinkedIn or other communication channel.
“Starting with highlights delivers 80 percent of the story in 20 percent of the time, and social context makes each point twice as sticky,” Courter said in a recent blog post.
Users can save Highly highlights for themselves, share privately with friends and family or share publicly with the community. Viewers don’t need an account to read a user’s highlights. The platform will allow readers to consume more information in a fraction of the time.
Wuebben and Courter started Highly in 2015 in San Francisco with help from friends in Silicon Valley. Wuebben and the Highly team are now based in Madison as of May 2016, while Courter and two team members work in the San Francisco office.
“We know firsthand that the talent in Madison is world-class,” Wuebben said. “We want to be a bridge between San Francisco and Madison. I think we can do a lot of good for the community.”
Highly is currently in beta-testing mode and will be adding paid services in the fall. Wuebben and Courter hope to build a “Highlight Layer,” which will serve as an attention filter for the Internet that is powered by a user’s connections. The feature will show top ideas and friends’ point of views directly on the article, catered to a user’s preferences.
“If you’re reading online, you should be highlighting with Highly,” Wuebben said. “By using our platform, everybody can take back control of their attention online.”
The speed factor is certainly a nice feature. However, the biggest reason why I use highly, is for the benefits marginalia brings when reading. When I have a highlighter at my fingertips, I read a story with more attention. Highlighting gives me additional critical reading skills to pull out the interesting nuggets. Highly provides that digital highlighter to use when reading stories online.