a more valuable web

Augmenting Reading

asym.co @AsymmetricaLabs

@AsymmetricaLabs

Background

2

• Writing began without spaces between words.

@AsymmetricaLabs

Background

2

• With the advent of the printing press, word spaces became uniform.

• Writing began without spaces between words.

@AsymmetricaLabs

Background

2

• With the advent of the printing press, word spaces became uniform.

• The web broke out of the fixed layout mold, but not fixed spaces.

• Writing began without spaces between words.

@AsymmetricaLabs

Background

2

• Asymmetrica brings natural language cues back with asymmetrical spacing.

• With the advent of the printing press, word spaces became uniform.

• The web broke out of the fixed layout mold, but not fixed spaces.

• Writing began without spaces between words.

@AsymmetricaLabs

Problem: Distraction

3

. . .

@AsymmetricaLabs

Problem: Distraction

3

. . .

Currently there are no ways to improve reading that are scalable–•–unobtrusive–•–effective

@AsymmetricaLabs

Solution: Asymmetrica

4

Text

Text w/ Asym Spacing

A cloud-based API to adjust the word spacing of text

Asym APIs

Creators & Publishers

asym

~6 ms

@AsymmetricaLabs

Chunking

5

@AsymmetricaLabs

User Experience

6

@AsymmetricaLabs

Why Now?

7

• High-quality language datasets • Ubiquitous high resolution displays • Better browser rendering

@AsymmetricaLabs

Machine Learning

8

@AsymmetricaLabs

Machine Learning

8

@AsymmetricaLabs

Human Learning

9

•Statistical properties of language

•Marking syntactic cues helps reading

•How do we find these cues and measure their importance?

@AsymmetricaLabs

Chromatography for Syntactic Cues

Separate mixtures into their components10 @AsymmetricaLabs

@AsymmetricaLabs

Chromatography for Syntactic Cues

Separate mixtures into their components10 @AsymmetricaLabs

Journal Fiction Magazine News Blog

0

Syntactically Important

Not Important

11 @AsymmetricaLabs

0

Syntactically Important

Not Important

Composite: 1 million documents

Syntactic “fingerprint”

of English

12 @AsymmetricaLabs

@AsymmetricaLabs

Value: Funnels & Engagement

13

‣ +21% blog article completion

‣ +7% interest in sharing a health literacy blog

‣ +11% landing page conversions

@AsymmetricaLabs

Value: Ads

14

Display Ads Example Experiment

6 banner creatives–•–12 A/B tests–•–615k impressions

728x90

Example Ad

@AsymmetricaLabs

Value: Ads

14

Display Ads Example Experiment

6 banner creatives–•–12 A/B tests–•–615k impressions

+24%CTR

@AsymmetricaLabs

Conclusion

15

asym.co

• Cloud-based microtypography is now a thing – available for English & German

• Readers: Free Asym Browser Extension

• Content creators & distributors: Asym API

asym

a more valuable web

@AsymmetricaLabs

Thank you and happy reading!