Topicmark Reads…(or Does It?)

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There is a device that reads for you. No, really, now you don’t even have to read anymore. This is the ultimate CliffNotes and it goes by the name of Topicmarks. If you have time to read this I’ll further explain. Topicmark is the Founder Showcase winner program that uses semantic text extraction and personalization technology to extract text from .pdf, .doc, .html, and .txt documents and reads it. Here’s what you do: You copy/paste, upload a link or enter the url of a site and Topicmark magically reads the uploaded content and tells you everything you need to know about that was read.

This service breaks the content down in 3 helpful columns: Overview, Facts and Summary. Keywords from the copy and properties can be accessed so that you may view the original source. The overview is actually interactive in that it allows users to search keywords within the overview and you may add and subtract text to the summary as needed. Which brings me to the question: How would we know what to add or subtract if we haven’t gotten around to reading the material? We ...
... could potentially be getting rid of valuable content here. According to founder Roland Siebelink, Topicmark is like a more-fleshed out TL;DR, with an “an enormous breadth of possible applications across various use cases and verticals.” The “hook” of this product is that is has the same aspiration as enterprise solutions Autonomy and Opentext but this service is free! Roland says that his future plans are to make the summarization technology readily available across all devices or wherever people read digital information.

I came across this product online and I had to know if it was too good to be true because it certainly sounded like it. If I could really have a program read for me and accurately summarize content with added notes, keywords and bullet points I may actually consider going back to school. This would make my life far too easy. Of course I had to try this out. I decided to try this program using a document that I did previously read (in fact I wrote it) so that I could not be fooled. I uploaded the document and I sat back and waited for the magic to happen. I wait…then I wait some more…nothing. “This can’t be right,” I think to myself, “let me try refreshing.” I refresh and wait a little longer. “Hmm…maybe I should copy and paste a document instead,” I later conclude, “the uploading of the file is probably taking too long.” I copy, paste and wait some more. About 5 minutes later (it would’ve taken me substantially less time to read a 500 word document, FYI) out pops the summary. I read the summary and realize that it is no summary at all. What the program opted to do instead of summarizing was grab several sentences from my document, piece it together and hope for coherence. I am not fooled Topicmark! I know my words when I see them. Reading? I think not. I much prefer to call that copy and pasting.

Needless to say I’m less than impressed. I was totally counting on Topicmark to read Moby Dick, Fountainhead and all those other lengthy classics I can’t seem to get around too. One of these days, Topicmark, let’s get it together. I’m counting on you.