Yakread is the world's finest reading app™, developed by myself, Jacob O'Bryant. Yakread uses a recommendation algorithm/"AI" to help you pick things to read. It's designed to make reading long-form content as effortless as scrolling Twitter, while still leaving you in control of what you read.

The For You page has an algorithmically curated feed of articles that were read by other Yakread users. You can jump in and start reading immediately; no need to even create an account first. As you use Yakread, the For You page will gradually adapt to your preferences.

The Subscriptions page lets you add your own newsletters and RSS feeds. Articles from your subscriptions will be mixed into the For You page, and they'll be available in chronological form on the Subscriptions page.

Bookmarks and favorites: save individual articles to read later and keep track of the ones you liked the most. Bookmarks get mixed into the For You page, too.

After you create an account, articles you click on will be opened in Yakread's reader mode, which provides a focused reading experience. It also has convenient controls for subscribing, viewing comments from websites like Reddit and Hacker News, and more.

And finally, the mobile web app: just hit "Add to Home Screen" from the web browser menu. If you're on your phone, you can try it right now.

Advertisement! You can book an ad to promote your newsletter or other product, and it'll be shown on the For You page. All ads are accompanied by an "Ad" label. If you'd like to support Yakread, you can upgrade to a premium subscription that removes ads.

Every self-respecting founder thinks of themselves as not just building a business but starting a movement. I have not escaped this temptation.

I want to help promote a healthier, more competitive social media landscape. The key is to separate publishing and reading so that network effects can be shared across many different apps instead of being concentrated in a few VC-funded monoliths.

This setup already exists to an extent in the form of email clients and RSS readers. However, the open newsletter ecosystem is already being embraced and extended by our friends over at Substack, who have built a reading app that gives an advantage to newsletters hosted on Substack—making them ultimately not all that different from the social media giants they want to replace.

Readers should be able to choose a reading app that's designed for their needs, and publishers shouldn't have to host their content in a particular place just so they can reach an audience. The goal of Yakread is to further those goals by joining the ranks of other publisher-neutral reading apps like Readwise and Matter.

In a nutshell: what would social media look like today if RSS readers had gone mainstream?

Shoot me an email.