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Instapaper is joining Pinterest

blog.instapaper.com

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Re: Instapaper is joining Pinterest

#101

Post by idlewords »

userhacker wrote: post #82
kough wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Readability ( https://github.com/luin/readability ) is a classic, and included as part of Firefox (I think, maybe that's been discontinued). It's essentially a bag of hand-written heuristics but they're pretty good heuristics. Some interesting reading is Christian Kohlschütter's thesis on this problem, which is framed in academia as "how do we assemble good text corpuses from webpages for data analysis, which means r…

I second Readability, it works great for article heavy webpages. I used it to build a reading time estimator for chrome https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/read-time/nccohhim... and its open source https://github.com/usergit/read-time bonus, you can click on the extension to show only the main content of the page

Thank you and the parent both for these links!

Re: Instapaper is joining Pinterest

#102

Post by joshuak »

niftich wrote: post #60
dmix wrote: post #48

Good opportunity to build an OSS alternative? Or even a side-project... in the possible event Instapaper gets sidelined. That always seems to happen. With the exception of maybe Reddit.

Can you summarize what their features are? From a quick web search, it seems to be: - Parsing a page for main body content, removing cruft, and reflowing it into an aesthetically pleasing layout - Cloud bookmarking these artifacts So how does this not run up against anti-scraping TOS provisions? Does money change hands between the publisher and the content-reflower?

For me the ability to have articles read to me on my phone while on the go is the key feature. I pay because of that feature alone, and would pay a LOT more to see general improvements in that direction.

Without that it's just another in a long series of fresh buckets to put under the leaky pipe of bookmarks.

Oh and...

Fuck you Pinterest and the wedding planners you rode in on!

Re: Instapaper is joining Pinterest

#104

Post by bthdonohue »

idlewords wrote: post #99
bthdonohue wrote: post #96

Hi all, Brian from Instapaper here. There seem to be a number of comments expressing concerns about the acquisition, and I wanted to just jump in and offer to answer any questions you have about the acquisition. Based on the comments I've read below the main concerns seem to be that Instapaper will either be shutdown or materially changed in a way that effects the end-user experience. I can tell you that neither of t…

Delighted competitor here. How do you force your entire staff to relocate across the country without "materially changing the end-user experience"?

Hi Maciej,

2/3 of the staff members are moving to San Francisco. We all agreed to it before making the decision, no hands were forced.

Also, big fan of your writing. Want to grab a coffee or beer now that I'm in SF?

Brian

Re: Instapaper is joining Pinterest

#105

Post by cheeze »

bthdonohue wrote: post #96

Hi all, Brian from Instapaper here. There seem to be a number of comments expressing concerns about the acquisition, and I wanted to just jump in and offer to answer any questions you have about the acquisition. Based on the comments I've read below the main concerns seem to be that Instapaper will either be shutdown or materially changed in a way that effects the end-user experience. I can tell you that neither of t…

I think that most of the concern comes from the fact that Pinterest has had no problem doing this in the past [1]. While it may not be the plan at this moment, things can change quickly, and with any change in a system like this, people are going to naturally worry since they've seen it happen countless times in the past.

Congratulations on the acquisition, and I wish you the best going forward.

[1] - https://medium.com/@pdavison/math-camp-is-joining-pinterest-...

Re: Instapaper is joining Pinterest

#106

Post by __derek__ »

idlewords wrote: post #36
__derek__ wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, and I think that's part of the joke for Pinboard.

It's even better because in a bit of a dick move, they tried to buy pinboard.com back in 2009 or 2010. I say "dick move" because Pinboard predates Pinterest and they were aware of me.

Oh! I didn't realize that.

Re: Instapaper is joining Pinterest

#107

Post by AndrewWarner »

cheeze wrote: post #105
bthdonohue wrote: post #96

Hi all, Brian from Instapaper here. There seem to be a number of comments expressing concerns about the acquisition, and I wanted to just jump in and offer to answer any questions you have about the acquisition. Based on the comments I've read below the main concerns seem to be that Instapaper will either be shutdown or materially changed in a way that effects the end-user experience. I can tell you that neither of t…

I think that most of the concern comes from the fact that Pinterest has had no problem doing this in the past [1]. While it may not be the plan at this moment, things can change quickly, and with any change in a system like this, people are going to naturally worry since they've seen it happen countless times in the past. Congratulations on the acquisition, and I wish you the best going forward. [1] - https://medium.…

I hate when apps I like shut down.

David was pretty open in the post you linked to: "Though the team will live on, we’ll be focused on building within the core Pinterest product."

Re: Instapaper is joining Pinterest

#109

Post by jonknee »

derefr wrote: post #80
jonknee wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why has nobody reverse-engineered the iCloud API and made a Chrome extension to talk to it? If you can reverse engineer iCloud and bypass its security there are a lot more lucrative pursuits than making a Chrome extension for your reading list.

Who said anything about bypassing security? I was presuming the extension would just "walk in the front door" by getting the user to log into it with their iCloud credentials, and then passing those to the server. Or are you saying that the iCloud protocols are obfuscated/DRMed above-and-beyond just having regular AAA constraints applied to them?

iCloud is not a free for all, it's meant to share data within your app or within your org's group of apps (e.g. all Google apps). The Reading List data is within Apple's own container and you would not have access to it through conventional tools.

This is typically a good thing because syncing is hard enough when you control both ends, having arbitrary programs messing with your data is a recipe for disaster.

Re: Instapaper is joining Pinterest

#110

Post by joshuak »

bthdonohue wrote: post #96

Hi all, Brian from Instapaper here. There seem to be a number of comments expressing concerns about the acquisition, and I wanted to just jump in and offer to answer any questions you have about the acquisition. Based on the comments I've read below the main concerns seem to be that Instapaper will either be shutdown or materially changed in a way that effects the end-user experience. I can tell you that neither of t…

I use Instapaper daily to have the playlist read articles to me while I'm in transit. I love this, oddly exclusive, feature and would pay to see improvements in that direction.

However, I do not care for Pinterest at all. I have created and later deleted several accounts just to give it a fair shake, but it doesn't hold a candle to Tumblr. Also the forced sign up is user antagonistic, and the source of much enmity from people who I've heard speak about it. So fine, clearly me and people like me are not the intended audience, but what does this mean for Instapaper?

I have a hard time seeing how these two services are in any way related; not by content, audience, business model, or features. I do not see the missing part of one in the other. I see two communities that appear to a casual observer to be oil and water, and I am concerned that Instapaper will move towards it's opposite.

Can you speak to these concerns, or suggest some ideas on how Pinterest might improve Instapaper for users?

Thanks

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