What If We Could Index Everything We Read?

Google is terrific but it doesn't help me answer the question, "where did I read about topic xyz?" I'm running into that question more frequently these days, partly because I'm reading so many short bursts of content from so many sources.

It's not just website content. I'm talking about emails, e-magazines, e-newspapers, ebooks, etc. In short, I need help indexing all the digital content streams I'm consuming every day.

Over the past few years I used a service called Findings that did some of this, but it was an approach that required me to actively curate the articles and excerpts I wanted to preserve and share. I need something that automatically ingests and indexes everything I see, not just what I've highlighted. And it has to happen with no clicks, copying, or curation required by me. Just index everything I see.

I want a tool that watches all the emails I read every day, keeps track of the content of the webpages I visit, has access to the magazines I read in Next Issue, sees all the content I consume in the Kindle app, the Byliner app, etc. When privacy advocates read that sentence their heads will explode. That's OK. They can choose to live without this service but I'll be more efficient because of it.

It's obviously a concept that requires opt-in from the user. It also requires the ability to tap into content streams from proprietary apps, not just browsers. And it needs to follow me across all my devices. Whoever develops it will help solve a problem that's only going to get worse in the years ahead. I hope they do so soon because I'd love to start using it today to build my index of everything for tomorrow.