What’s in Om’s Pocket

Nate and I met with GigaOm founder Om Malik last week, and we had an interesting conversation with him about his reading habits—what he’s interested in, and what he likes to share with others via his frequent “What I Am Reading Today” posts. Afterward we sent him his personal stats for saving and reading inside Pockethere’s what he did with it:

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In his post, Om sounds a little dejected about his “open rate” in Pocket, saying that “I was only reading about a third of what I was saving.”

But fret not, Om! There is a misperception that Pocket should be treated like an email inbox, in which you have to go back to every single story or video that you’ve saved. Pocket works best if your “net consumption” is better than what it would’ve been without save for later. This means either:

  1. You are consuming, on average, more worthwhile content than you would have without Pocket, or
  2. You are consuming higher-quality content than you would have without Pocket.

My open rate is probably abysmal, because I am a digital hoarder. But I end up consuming exponentially more/better stories in a given day than I would have without Pocket.

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