Product Roadmap: Reading Lists

Opportunity

The community of data science content creators is bustling right now as the whole world’s eyes are on the rapid advancement of AI. Some try their hand at writing articles for sites like Towards Data Science, others write posts for LinkedIn, and others create newsletters using tools like Substack.

Pain Points

What’s missing from the ecosystem right now is the equivalent of Spotify playlists – a place for anyone to curate reading lists of recommended content (both their own and other’s). Readers can follow or subscribe to content creators to get updates, but they don’t have an easy way to view their greatest hits.

Readers also don’t have an easy way to save all their favorite content across blogging platforms, at least not in a way that is both shareable and monetizable.

Lastly, learners don’t have an easy way to find collections of content that help them improve specific skills. Learners want a central place to track which content they’ve read and see how they are progressing towards filling skill gaps.

Solution: Skillenai Reading Lists

Skillenai’s planned Reading List feature solves all the pain points described above. Here’s how Reading Lists will work.

1. Skillenai scrapes 100s of data science blogs and adds to a search index
2. User creates a Reading List and assigns a description, skills, and other attributes to it.
3. User searches for data science content to add to their Reading List
   • Content can be added one by one or in bulk based on keywords, tags, authors, domains, similarity, and other attributes.
4. User publishes their Reading List for others to enjoy.
   • Can set to Members-Only to gate all but top 5 items in Reading List
5. Readers search for Reading Lists that meet their specific learning objectives
6. Readers track progress towards building new skills as they complete Reading Lists.
7. Creators of Reading List earn share of Member fees metered by engagement metrics.

Benefits

Reading Lists are a win for both readers and content creators, and create virtuous cycles of growth for content creators via SEO and social media. The Reading List pages will drive organic traffic from search engines, while creators of Reading Lists will do their own marketing (social media and beyond) that benefits the whole community by bringing new readers to not only their own Reading Lists but also those of others.