The Blog

When we surveyed our customers in the recent Spreeder Pro launch, an iPad version was hands down the most popular request.

It’s not hard to see why – the Spreeder experience is perfectly suited to the comfort, convenience, and portability of the iPad.

The Spreeder team have been working on the iPad version for over a year now, and we’re almost ready to release Spreeder Pro for the iPad.

The iPad version of Spreeder Pro is truly beautiful. Here are some spy photos taken in the office of CEO Marc Slater. Marc is already using the iPad Spreeder (test versions) to power through all his important reading material.

We expect this to be released by the end of the month, and all existing Spreeder Pro customers be given immediate free access.

Since we announced Spreeder Pro a few days ago, we have been literally swamped by questions on our helpdesk, in the survey, and in social media. Thank you for your feedback – it’s both humbling and encouraging to receive such a massive response.

Spreeder Pro is going to be released to the public at 7PM PST on Wednesday, January 27th. Just so you’re ready, here are the answers to your most common questions about Spreeder Pro:

What is Spreeder Pro?

First, Spreeder Pro is the world’s most advanced and powerful “speed e-reader”. Second, Spreeder pro gives you expert training, a cloud library, computer training and more. It’s all designed to help you read faster, learn faster, and comprehend more.

Does Spreeder Pro allow me to easily read all my material such as websites, blogs, books, files, etc?

Yes, Spreeder Pro is designed first for reading entire texts and books faster, so you can use Spreeder pro for all your reading and save lots of time. It’s great for anyone with a lot of reading that needs to be done quickly.

Does Spreeder Pro remember my location in every e-book, document, and webpage I’m reading?

Yes it does. You can import multiple books and documents. Spreeder will store them all in your cloud library and remember your location in each book, document, and webpage you’re reading.

Can I use larger chunk sizes in Spreeder Pro or is it limited to a word at a time?

It’s very important to have the flexibility so you can match the text display to your reading style. Spreeder Pro can handle chunk sizes of a single word, all the way up to 30 words on 5 lines. So you can work in the mode that suites your reading style best.

Does Spreeder Pro address bad reading habits such as subvocalization, re-reading, etc?

Yes. Spreeder has specific training courses, techniques, and lessons designed specifically to address the bad reading habits that are slowing you down.

Will Spreeder Pro help with my comprehension, retention, and memory?

The RSVP method of reading that Speeder uses has been shown in studies to increase reading speed and comprehension. If you have used the free Spreeder app then you have already experience this. Spreeder Pro takes this same concept to a whole new level.

Will Spreeder Pro be available on the iPad?

Yes it will very soon. The desktop and web versions will be released first in January. We are doing the final testing on the iPad version and it will be released in February. Everyone who gets Spreeder in the initial release will get free and priority access to the iPad version as soon as it’s released.

Can I use Spreeder Pro offline?

Spreeder Pro has some support for offline use. Once you have downloaded or imported your book from the cloud library, you can keep reading it offline. However, you’ll need a connection to change books, or to do the video and training courses.

What is the expert training all about?
In Spreeder Pro, we worked with leading speed reading and learning experts to make the most powerful speed reading training. The expert training helps you read faster on a computer, on devices, and even offline. It also teaches you powerful techniques for managing information overload, improving your memory, and learning super fast.

To make Spreeder Pro amazing, we worked with a wide range of experts, such as expert memory trainer Sean M Kelly. In our final sneak preview, you can see Sean recall Pi to 100 decimal places.

Sean also shows you how to improve your memory, concentration, creativity, and visualization.

Watch the video below, we think you’ll be pretty amazed at what you can achieve!

As the world’s most powerful speed e-reader, Spreader Pro will work to make you read faster, eliminate subvocaliztion, and comprehend more. In addition, the expert training courses in Spreeder will address all your bad reading habits and the relationships between them.

Our second sneak preview shows you the exact reason that slow readers typically daydream, have lower comprehension, and can’t remember what they read. It also shows you what to do about it.

This preview is from one of the training lessons in Spreeder Pro and is created by Abby Marks Beale. Author of The Complete Idiots Guide To Speed Reading & 10 Days to Faster Reading, Abby is a leading expert. She has taught speed reading to professionals (including Fortune 500 companies) for over 25 years.

Watch the video now by pressing the play button below. It will only take 2 minutes and could help you improve your comprehension and memory for what you read.

Over the next few days we’ll be giving you a taste of what’s to come in Spreeder Pro. The video below is taught by Kathleen Hawkins.

Author of Speed Reading Made Easy and 6 other top sellers, Kathleen Hawkins has taught over 60,000 people to speed read in person. Kathleen is also vice president of the National Management Institute.

This is taken from Kathleen’s powerful 16-part course in Spreeder Pro, which itself is just 1 of 6 exclusive expert courses included in the new program (more previews coming soon).

We hope you enjoy the video!

To Book Lovers who can’t decide where to put their unused books, here are 10 tips to creating new and useful designs of pre-loved books. Try it out and Share it with your friends!

1)      Christmas Tree of Books

2)      Indoor Lantern Decor

3)      Book Flower

4)      Picture Book Frame

5)      Photo Holder

6)      A Worthy Study Table

7)      Side Table

8)      Book Vase

9)      Stack It Up

10)      Book to Book Shelf

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What drives consumer action? A new Twitter study titled “Discovering the Value of Earned Audiences” reveals that when consumers are exposed to brand-based tweets, this positively affects their online and offline behavior.

The study findings were revealing.

Consumers engage with brands, they don’t just follow them. The study confirmed that brands drive the conversation on Twitter and improve the way people interact with them. Active brands tend to have not just passive followers, but potential consumers that are keen to engage with that brand.

People don’t see brands as remote, faceless companies; they see a media-savvy company as a responsive, social, and friendly entity they can engage in conversation with, a fact that adds further importance in how much leverage brands actually have over consumer opinion.

Brand engagement on Twitter improves consumer action. The study revealed that half of the 12,000 study respondents took action immediately after seeing a brand tweet. This action included visiting the brand’s site or Twitter page.

Brand engagement improves purchase decisions. The figures are indeed telling; almost 1 in 5 Twitter users will eagerly retweet a tweet that mentions a brand. And the same percentage (19%) is contemplating a purchase after being exposed to a brand-related tweet, proof that brand-based social engagement does drive consumer behavior.

Non-brand originating tweets encourage more action from consumers. When tweets originate from a non-brand related source, then Twitter users are more likely to take some online or offline action related to that brand. Only 43% of the survey respondents confirmed that brand-initiated tweets encouraged them to act.

Other important figures to consider:

8 in 10 respondents said they had mentioned a brand in their own Twitter activity at some point during the measurement period (September 2013 – March 2014).

20% of the respondents said they do online research on a brand after being exposed to a brand tweet.

About 58% of the 13-to-17 age group take action after being exposed to a brand tweet.

This Twitter study is revealing for both big and smaller brands and companies. Social media marketing does pay off as consumers engage with brands in ways that are profitable and beneficial for the brand.

By crafting shareable tweets you can increase user engagement with your brand or product and ultimately even boost your sales. Remember that a compelling tweet needs the following ingredients:

– Relevant and targeted vocabulary
– Catchy intro
– A call to action
– An image or video
– Original, witty content
– Brevity
– Tweet (about) news

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There are many words in the English language that are difficult to spell. Some of those words are difficult because they have clusters of consonants, others because of the “I before E” question, and many words are simply so unusual or uncommon that even the best spellers have to stop and think about the order of the letters. Actually, stopping and thinking is a great way to make sure that you’re spelling all your words correctly. Don’t forget that a few minutes of editing your text will save you time (and possibly embarassment) later.

Whoops! That should be embarrassment. We always get that one wrong …

Doubled letters are hard to handle in many words, and today we’ll look at seven of the words that people often misspell because of that double-letter problem. When you’re learning how to spell a word, it’s a good idea to write the word out several times, and even write it out in a sentence. If your eyes get used to the look of the correctly-spelled word, and your fingers and hand get used to how it feels to type or write it out, you’ll be less likely to misspell the word in the future. We’ve given you an example sentence for each of the frequently-misspelled words below:

embarrass
My mother used to embarrass me by asking my dates all sorts of personal questions.

illegible
Why do you think even the best doctors have such illegible handwriting?

committee
We want you to be on the library funding committee this year.

possession
I knew the game was over when Gonzalez lost possession of the ball with thirty seconds to go.

misspell
Practice every day, and soon you won’t misspell any words!

disapprove
Paul’s father might disapprove of his plan to become a clown, but he’ll pay for a year at the National Circus School anyway.

professor
That professor always grades exams while drinking a cup of tea.

“Don’t look back, Ashley, don’t look back. It’ll drag at your heart until you can’t do anything but look back.” – Scarlett O’Hara, in the 1939 film version of “Gone With The Wind”

That’s sound advice for many aspects of life, but particularly applicable to practicing your speed reading skills. One of the bad reading habits that many people develop is regression, or “looking back” at text that they’ve already gone over, whether they need to or not. There are several reasons for this habit:

– Their early reading teachers stressed the importance of making sure they read all the text.
– They aren’t focused , so they forget the text at top of the page by the time they reach the bottom.
– They don’t trust their reading skills, so re-read “just to make sure.”

When you first learned to read, you probably were reading words one at a time, but even then your eyes and brain were processing the text on the page more quickly than you realized. If you’re even an average reader, you’re unconsciously taking in more information that you’re consciously aware of. Take advantage of the power of your brain and relax – you don’t have to work as hard as you think you do to be a fast reader.

You do, however, need to stay focused. Developing your power of concentration and attention will help you in more than your speed reading practice. Another way to keep your focus on the text is to “look ahead” before you start reading, and take a few minutes to think about why you’re going to read that particular document. Are you looking for something specific, a fact or set of figures, or just overall general information on a topic? If you keep the goal of reading in mind while you read, you’ll find it easier to focus on the text.

As Scarlett O’Hara said, when you spend too much time looking back you’ll forget how to move forward. If you catch yourself re-reading text automatically, work on breaking the habit by covering the text or pages you’ve already read, or keeping your hand off the “back” button or scroll bar. Don’t let the habits of the past keep you from the speed reading future you deserve!