I tried Blinkist so you don't have to | Blinkist Review [CC] 

I fully understand the criticisms of Blinkist, but I want to add that it's been incredibly helpful for me. Reading is everything to me. I read full books and get lost in them and love them. But I have severe memory issues due to brain damage from abuse, and blackouts due to mental health. I can read a book and have dozens of thoughts and opinions about it in that moment, but the next day I might not remember reading it at all or the main themes and plots are densely foggy in my brain. Blinkist is like this refresher course for me. It's like someone is telling my brain "Hey, you read this! Do you remember this part? This chapter is where you felt this feeling. This is why you didn't like this book as much" When I know I'm going to be discussing a book with a friend, I use Blinkist so I have the basic points in my head and can form cohesive thoughts. I don't use it as a replacement for books at all, but it helps me and I think it could have benefits for other people that we're not aware of!

You should hire blinkist to cut down your review to 2 minutes or shorter

I think the best reason I've heard to use Blinkist is to sample the book's main ideas to see if you are interested in reading the whole book. That makes sense to me.

Honestly, I actually think this style of book summary service makes sense in a very specific context: pop-business/career and self-help. So many of those books have a single chapter that could stand on its own, but are filled out with needless inspirational stories and examples in order to fill a book (a book that will probably be sold to businesses for their team-building activities). I can easily see a short summary of those being a more productive use of time than reading the (mostly pointless) padding in the actual books. But maybe I'm just bitter after having spent eight years working for a company that had us read that kind of book for our quarterly team-building events. 😆

20-min long video, yet content for no more than 5 minutes. For this kind of stuff (including books) Blinkist was invented

I think it's pretty good when you don't use it as a replacement for reading books, but a way to summarize the given book after reading it.

Hmmm, I have listened to around 400 "books" via Blinkist, and most of those are books I would NEVER have chosen to listen to and certainly not read those books. There is actually a totally free version of Blinkist where you get to listen to "the book of the day" and this book is often topical in some way, but again because it is chose by blinkist, it is almost always a book I would never have chosen and in most cases a book I would never have even heard about without Blinkist. I have learnt LOADS by listening to the book of the day every day during my 15-20 minute run. I concede that maybe I did not get the full depth of the book from the Blinks, but I have bought a few books off the back of the summary because I DID want to find out more and dig deeper. I am not expecting much more from a 15 minute summary than just some key concepts, but those key concepts have opened my mind massively to some topics that I did not know anything about and probably would never have learnt anything about were it not for Blinkist. I actually often summarise the Blink of the day during my daily 10 minute facebook live (many of which are uploaded to my RU-vid Channel) so I end up summarising the summary into about 2 minutes, so no doubt you would hate me even more! LOL Anyway, I LOVE the Blinkist book of the day. I have upgraded to a paid account, not least as I think I got a special offer of 12 months for £37 or something, so that was a bargain to be able to listen to some additional books when my run ends up being a bit longer and sometimes when I go out for walks in the day!

I use Blinkist to find books that are interesting, so a summary of the key ideas is sufficient. It's frustrating to invest 2h and more into a book and then quit, because it is not getting any better. Also the key advantage is that I don't have the time to actually sit and read (even Wikipedia articles), still can listen to the audio summary. The complete 10h audio books are just too long if the author just doesn't get to the point -> I have to know beforehand if the audio book is worth the time. Also podcasts / interviews are not a replacement for decent summaries, because interviewer could be bad at asking the right questions or they babble off-topic .. then it's already too late, already spent the time.

Thank you for your insightful review. I have searched high and low for an honest independent review of Blinkist and you have delivered. Your comment that books are already edited was gold 😊

You have convinced me that substantive books cannot be briefly summarized yet convey most or all of the content. But it is possible that Blinkist might be useful for other summarizing books that really don't contain much content..

Thank you for taking the time to make this available for everyone. Your opinion is much appreciated.

I think blinkers helps the most is when you read a lot of books per year, most likely you have forgotten a lot of information. Blindest will really help you regain the concepts for books you read years ago.

You misunderstand: often people just want a quick overview about topics they have some knowledge about. If that particular topic interest them, or conflicts with their current assumptions, they could look deeper into it (getting a fully audio book, or reading a books or articles about it)

Please keep in mind that summaries are NOT replacements for having read the original material, but companions to the originals - like portable, digestible notes that you can access in under 20 minutes or so. This is particularly useful if you’re going to need to recall or reinforce specific points prior to presentation in a meeting, seminar, or class.

Cliff Notes of the web. Read a book summary before purchasing. Seems attractive to many busy individuals. Just like speed learning.

I have it right now. To be honest, nothing can ever replace reading full books. BUT, comparing Blinkist to just watching pointless content in social media, Blinkist is astronomically way better than indulging in social media. It could also be a gateway for you to eventually start reading the actual books themselves.

How about tweaking the concept of Blinkist so you have a 15-minute version, a 10 hour version, and a 5-day version and you can zoom in/out within the chapters you want to add depth? And then it’s like zooming in/out of a Google earth map.

It's garbage. The problem is, in its "summaries", it cuts out so much nuance that it states ideas that the author actually DIDN'T want to convey, but because they made that argument in the first half of a chapter, Blinkist will conclude that this is a key takeaway of the chapter. Also, I cancelled it IMMEDIATELY and they still charged me. I've written to them and they get ONE shot at giving me my money back immediately, otherwise I'm making a video about how it's a scam.

While I did find this video very well presented, informative, and relatively balanced, the main feeling I was left with was that this was a critique of the idea of Blinkist itself rather than a review/critique of the service. It felt more like I was being persuaded away from the idea of a service like Blinkist ever being useful at all. As a person who is a relatively well read but looking to become more-so, and is frustrated by the over saturation and hype cycle of publisher marketing ( I would argue Blinkist target demographic) I was left feeling unsure about my ability to trust her opinion fully on this topic. She did pretty much allude to being slightly biased by saying she is an avid reader so I’m not insinuating she was doing this intentionally. She also did manage to give me some clues into why Blinkist might not be the right tool for me. So my critique is more an observation of the perspective she choose to approach this with and how it could be improved. Basically I’m saying I disagree that it’s impossible to distil the central arguments of dense non fiction books into 14 min chunks and do it justice. But she did convince that blinkest themselves may have failed at the task for one reason or another (tho didn’t explain exactly how they failed, only that they did). I also disagree in her opinion that their marketing was trying to appeal to people who want to sound smart without reading. I didn’t see it that way at all.

That's a really good point about finding authors interviewed about their books, and the nice thing is they'll sometimes even do "tours" where they'll be on more than one podcast so you could even hit it from different angles I was on the fence about trying the app but I think I'll save my time and money for other things Thanks!

My jaw dropped at the concept of _Sapiens_ being condensed into 15 minutes

First I watched the video without looking at anything other than the title. Then I saw the channel name and instantly subscribed. You're brilliant and exactly my kind of role model. Xx

I am convinced, I will keep taking my notes, summmaryzing by myself and enjoying the reafina! Thanks for sharing your impressions

TL;DW I was looking for a summary of Blinkist, but 20 minutes is too long to watch. 😉

could you use blinkist as a way to see if you want to read the book or not? like a review of a book you were thinking of reading

I agree with your point of view, thanks for sharing your thoughts

Great job, thank you... addresses (and confirms) all the reservations I've had about trying the service out.

I've JUST downloaded it and so impressed so far. Wish I'd discovered it sooner.

The app is very useful to get a glimpse of a long and technical non-fiction book before starting to read it. It gives me some mental models of what to remember and focus on while reading the actual long book. It helps me retain more information and read a book in shorter time overall. It is also great to read or listen to a summary before deciding to purchase a book.

Yeah, ha thanks. I kind of guessed this but wanted to hear someone say it. I think the best Idea would be if they actually had a legit good writer to make the summaries. If they sacrificed speed of summary to be more comprehensive would be better. I have read some books in social psychology they could definitely be condensed but you wouldnt want to over do it. Bassically, the goal in reading or listening to the summary is you want to still get a great intellectual return in the shortest amount of time. Once you start losing too much value of a book it defeats the purpose.

I am dyslexic and have difficulty processing and retaining information. Reading books from cover to cover is not effective for me, as the information doesn't stick. Even audio books don't solve this problem. However, I have found that using short articles and techniques like mindmaps and mnemonics greatly enhance my memory. Blinkist books have been a perfect solution for people like me who struggle with reading. Dyslexia has been a major challenge in my life, but I am grateful to the creators of Blinkist for providing the dyslexic community with new opportunities in literature.

I haven't tried it yet, but my issue is that I find when I'm reading a book, there is that one paragraph or sentence that is a "aha!" moment, that crystalizes everything in the book. An abridged version would probably be missing that.

Thank you for your honest review of the product. The only value I can see in Blinkest is to use in revision, like flash cards. But even then, the revision should really be your own, not someone else’s.

Back in my day we called this spark notes, and before that they were CliffsNotes

Sapiens is already a brief summary, a condensed story of millions of years of human history. Having a summary if THAT is just unthinkable.

I decided to subscribe to your channel because I found it informative and you are really good at explaining the details, thank you so much.

Your review of Blinkist was very helpful. I really liked the idea of searching for interview/podcast with the author for getting high level idea of the book. That's a great advice for making a purchase decision of a book.

i think the key problem is... Nuance needs fulls a explenation an explenation that the auther may not even portray full and to condence it lessens the information into somthing that is more like somones interpretation of the information witch can be a millon diffrent things from a single sentince depending on how packed with informatin it is.

this is oxymoron. people lack of time will not stay for 19 mins watching this video. forget about reading this comment. but for all of you who will read this. I agree with her, book be it fiction or non fiction will not be enjoyed / absorbed in compressed form. This may be hugely biased. but I prefer re-reading great books I loved. and will not prefer to read shorter version even if I have read it.

I listened to one Blinkest audiobook on RU-vid. It could refresh you if you've read a book and want a recap after a readthrough. It's like at the end of a textbook chapter when there's a list of key takeaways. You can't just read those bullet points at the end, but they're good for settling the chapter's info in your mind. As I read something, it's all a bit of a blur, so I like to watch a video or something about the book or chapter. But you can just find those online for free.

I also tried it and I think it can be useful to listen before reading the book. Many times I get distracted while reading english (a foreign language to me) books so knowing what to expect before reading "the big book".

I've always been skeptical of that app. Never tried it, but I don't think it makes sense

Spinster's point can be summarized thusly: It is impossible to summarize. But if that's the conclusion, did we really need to sit through this video? Obviously, I don't really agree with this conclusion. Of course we cannot replace the book with its summary, but I think these summaries can play important roles in our learning. First, we can listen to a bunch of summaries to get a feel for what a field is about. Then we can pick from among the summarized books several that we would like to read in full. Then, armed with our summary knowledge, we can read those books more effectively, prepared to dig into certain issues, looking for discussions of particular topics that are more controversial or important. A summary is always incomplete, or you might say inadequate, but it is what it is and I can find a good use for it.

Excellent, detailed and most helpful Review! Many thanks.

Well you could have used one of those books in the fee trial and learn how to make a review. Since you basically just spent 20 minutes hating on this app just because you don't like, that's not review...

You confirmed my uncertainties. Thank you for talking me out of it

when I tried Blinkist a year ago , the selection seemed far too limited in my tastes of genres

This was above and beyond the call of duty on your part! Are you now going to get spam emails from Blinkist for the rest of your life?

It reminds me of those movie summary channels on RU-vid.

I'm editing this comment because I want to be respectful of your time. I appreciate you doing this review. Having said that I only watched the first few minutes of the video. I scrolled the rest. I mainly wanted to know what you think of the app and why. I got frustrated when you didn't come quickly to the point. I can figure out how to install the app and I can find my way around it on my own. I just wanted to know what you thought of it so I can make a quick, somewhat informed decision about whether to try it for myself. Thanks for making the video, but I was too impatient to sit through the whole thing.

I was looking to use it as a detailed review of a book. And then make a decision about buying it. My choice of books often leaves me unsatisfied as far as contents are concerned. A was hoping the app would help.

thanks for your honest review.

The moment you said I am a fiction reader I skipped your video .Thank you for your review

Thanks for this review, I was about to sign up but now having second thoughts. Then on the other hand, I haven't read full books in years. So maybe still better than nothing?

The main problem with blinkist is you are letting others decide for you what are the key ideas.

I think this makes sense cuz most people dont retain most what they read. Ask people what they got from who moved my cheese after a month and they only retain the main points

You've saved me a lot of money, thank you.

she got a point..

"Books are already reduced" pretty sure that's not true. Tgere is an accepted form and Length, expectations of readers attention and level knowledge etc. These can all be varied.

what about Shortform? they have more in depth summaries.

1. Thank you so much for this review. I can kinda grasp what you meant and maybe Blinkist is not for me. 2. Thank you so much for the indirect Sapiens recomendation. I just bought the book after watching this video 💙

I think blinkist or other apps like this should not be an replacement for books .You can really gain more benefit if you use it during reading the actual books. 1. May seen as an intro to decide whether you want to buy the book. 2. Use it as an pre-read of an book (learned this from another ytuber but i forgot the name) 3. Make an mind map using this app and then its like fill in the blank while you're reading the actual book.This really boost my reading speed. Don't think of blinkist as an magic app or sth .just consider if all the function above worth the money or not.

I wonder how well it works for retaining ideas and concepts after you have already read a book and want a refresher

I’m only curious about how they Blinkist Harry Potter

I truly enjoy your reviews and I hope that you'll keep up the good work. Regarding blinkist, I'd like to comment to say that you'd have to compare what's comparable. Making a 15 min summary of a 300-page book seems like a challenge and I have no idea whether blinkist does a good job or not. However if you compare the 15 min condensed version with the unabridged book, it seems obvious that it'll be an uneven match. I'd guess that anyone who's likely to pay for digests rather than investing time in reading the source material sees some value in it. My bottom line is that choices are made in any summary, and that it's perfectly fine as long as one presents it as such.

Great video. Was interested in blinkist but your arguments are echoing the same reservations that I already had.

I do agree with you. I like the idea of a summarised book but I doubt 15 min is sufficient .A regular sized book can take me between 7-10 hours to read. So I doubt I can get all the valuable information in 15 minutes.

Such a cool review! Thanks. I will better go for audiobook & podcast🤟🏻.

Can you maybe also test „Shortform“?

Vielen Dank, dass du deine ehrliche Meinung dazu preisgibst, wollte gerade ein Abo abschließen, weil ich Wirtschaftsbücher testen wollte, aber nicht mal dafür reicht es anscheinend! Lg

“No...no...no” Correct! This site is...not necessary or even desirable.

People with a lot of money or no life, kids will have a lot of time reading many books a month or year, but for everybody else who are normal, Blinkist is the best App. I totally disagree with her view.

Digital CLIFF notes. Nothing new here at all. These were good to read AFTER one reads the actual entire book. So I agree with your overall conclusion.

That's such a great review, thank you!!

TFS I have been spammed by them lately all because I got curious and looked at their ad. I wanted to know if their summaries actually are able to capture a book. Per you...nope. :) I'll stick with RU-vidrs that do the same thing...for free.

Thanks for your review, just what I needed. Very thorough

Am I being dense but what's the point? If you want a summary of a book read Amazon, Goodreads or Wikipedia but what is wrong with (controversial point) reading the book?

Totally get what you're saying... You pretty much can condense anything down to 30 seconds though.

Seems like something George Costanza would do to try and cheat in a book club or sound smart in front of a women he's trying to impress, also the price of it is insane.

Thank you for doing this, I’ve seen the adverts and have been curious but will now avoid!

I find the criticism of the app quite harsh and unfair. I think like with any other app or product it will not suite everyone's needs or wants. The app doesn't promise that it will deliver a better experience than reading a full book, it's just to give key ideas so personally find that this review isn't objective enough and way too long (why blab about it for 19 minutes). If anyone has the time and likes to read full books stick to that and don't use the app simple as that.

I'm looking for readers who can summarize books in a specialized way, with demands on the overall objective of the book, the main point of the book, important notes and sections that were learned, eg breaking down a 300 page book into 20-30 pages of real content and what they were inspired from. This can greatly vary since not all books are created equally.

How about using this in the other way around, listening the summary then if sounds interesting, get and read the full book?

Omg that "key takeaway" for Sapiens made me laugh. Like who on earth doesn't know that already? Why do I need to pay to know that lol. They need to step up their games for sure.

The only question I have after watching your review is: why does your right hand index finger have no nail polish?🤔

Superb - this is exactly what I expected. Someone paid to pinch out the 15 min blurb of a book. Having read Mastery (twice) by Green and there is no way a 15 min distillation could do any level of justice. You said it better, thanks for making and sharing this video!

I am trying Blinkist and I am impressive how "nothing" I've learned so far, it summarizes way too much, I think they shouldn't make the 15/30 minutes a hard requirement.. I am OK if the summary takes an hour... but really, I need to learn something in the end.. and with just 15m is quite challenging to learn anything...

Omg her face on the thumbnail says it all 😂😅❤

Maybe use as an introduction to the material prior to reading the source material.

Does she understand that Blinkist isnt to stop reading … its to give a summary of the book , which would be an incentive to me to buy and read the book .

Very IMPRESIVE LACK OF CAPACITY OF synthesising from this lady , amazing and a paradox , considering the subject

I wonder whether you're asking the right question about the format when formulating critique, as i would be asking myself if i had to sumarize anything for 15 minutes how would i do it and what would i cover, because if thats the challenge and the manages to do it effectively i would consider it a huge benefit. The marketing should be emphasized accordingly, so that people understand what it means to have a book summarized in 15 minutes, and to avoid having unrealistic expectations, an analogy would be if you had two options to choose from, say for instnace between chocolate or vanilla ice cream, you couldnt choose any other flavors just one of those two, the options limit your expectations, i think marketing should also doe the same to avoid false assumptions.

As an academic, the concept disgusts me. As a person, the first thing I think of are arrogant people who want to seem smart.

You rendered us an important public service here and I commend you for taking one for the team

For a person who just started out reading habit like me, this app helps but not that satisfying. i've finished reading Rich Dad Poor Dad. Next day i listened to its blinks. it summarises, yes. but not wholly. and i think if i only listen to its blinks without reading the book by myself, i would get the infos, yet very few infos i personally feels. and the inspirational part of the story would never gets me through blinks as it does through the book. for a person who just wants to fulfill their time with beneficial activities, blinkist would do good. just not as best as reading the book for sure, especially with the understanding and inspiration from the author himself.

I use it to improve my english skill. So far so good

In summary, this is like showing trailers of a movie you get a glimpse of idea of whats going to happen. But never get complete experience If you dont have time dont even watch trailer. Enjoy reading whole book this app is a waste.

Something is strange about that app. I don’t know I may be superstitious but the app seems to not help rather make it worse 😅

I learn German (finally passed B2) and I use Blinkist to upgrade to C1-C2

This is painful the listen too. It a simple concept. Spend 20 minutes on social media or learn about something you can learn from