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Instapaper Goes From Hobby To Startup

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11–20 of 42 posts

Re: Instapaper Goes From Hobby To Startup

#11

How does this stack up against Read It Later? Anybody tried both of them? They sound identical

I never used Read It Later, but instapaper can also save kindle and epub files. Even if I have a pro instapaper iphone app, I mainly use it on the kindle these days.

Re: Instapaper Goes From Hobby To Startup

#13
post #9

I should probably submit this to him (and I shall now), but my chief complaint with Instapaper is that on split-page articles it doesn't automatically combine them into one. Some sites (namely WashPo comes to mind off the top of my head) won't let you single page articles, so it makes it a pain to use Instapaper on those. Hopefully with more time on his hands he'll be able to add more features like this. EDIT: Looks…

Heck, I'd be pretty happy with a little button/dropdown in the popup that let me say which article the page is a part of.

Re: Instapaper Goes From Hobby To Startup

#14

How does this stack up against Read It Later? Anybody tried both of them? They sound identical

I use both and Instapaper does much nicer job of reformatting HTML into something readable. Most of the time it is a blessing, but sometimes it may be the curse (e.g. you have colored table with critical information).

Re: Instapaper Goes From Hobby To Startup

#16

Does anyone know how he promoted it? I'm having a bit of trouble with my startup (historious), in that I don't know how I should go about promoting it...

Tadam, you've just promoted it! I googled and took a quick look at it, but I'm curious how different is it from a bunch of other already entrenched bookmarking sites?

Re: Instapaper Goes From Hobby To Startup

#17

Does anyone know how he promoted it? I'm having a bit of trouble with my startup (historious), in that I don't know how I should go about promoting it...

Tadam, you've just promoted it! I googled and took a quick look at it, but I'm curious how different is it from a bunch of other already entrenched bookmarking sites?

That's my biggest problem (getting people to understand the awesomeness). I've used other sites, but this is the only truly zero-cost bookmarking service (I'm referring to mental cost). When the mental cost for bookmarking is removed, you find that you bookmark anything that looks remotely interesting and then you can find it very very easily.

Other services have the burden that I either have to fill out too much stuff when bookmarking (tags, categories etc), and/or that I have to categorise my bookmarks. This adds the pages you bookmark to the index right away, so bookmarking is single-click and then you have your personal search engine.

Try it, it's really great. My problem, however, is that I can't find a good way to tell people about it without spamming it, and I was wondering how people approached this problem for Instapaper, which is a not entirely different service...

Re: Instapaper Goes From Hobby To Startup

#18

Does anyone know how he promoted it? I'm having a bit of trouble with my startup (historious), in that I don't know how I should go about promoting it...

I'm in the same general space as you (bookmarking / browsing tools), and I have some insight.

I think Instapaper gets a lot of word of mouth spreading because it's an iPhone App. That encompasses a lot more than it sounds. Being an iWhatever App means you get eyeballs from the store, but more importantly from its users - both online and in real life. iPhone/Pad/etc applications are highly sociable and shareable; revealing a useful App to somebody is a form of social value. It's a platform that is in vogue right now: How many times have you been recommended a certain App, or have seen somebody using an interesting one? Ok, now how many times have you been recommended a bookmarklet?

You were blogged a few times, that should have helped somewhat. It's possible that Historious isn't as useful as you think it is. I had written in this box a big long paragraph about why I think that is, but it's not pertinent to your question about promotion. If you'd like more of my thoughts on Historious, shoot me an e-mail, I'd be glad to give you my $.02.

There was also a post around here that detailed a template and methodology for 'pitching' an article about your product to bloggers. The gist of it was: You need to be actively seeking bloggers and promoters, you need to show them you're interested in their work, and you need to pitch them your product in a way that makes them feel their readers will click to read about it.

Re: Instapaper Goes From Hobby To Startup

#20

Does anyone know how he promoted it? I'm having a bit of trouble with my startup (historious), in that I don't know how I should go about promoting it...

I'm in the same general space as you (bookmarking / browsing tools), and I have some insight. I think Instapaper gets a lot of word of mouth spreading because it's an iPhone App. That encompasses a lot more than it sounds. Being an i Whatever App means you get eyeballs from the store, but more importantly from its users - both online and in real life. iPhone/Pad/etc applications are highly sociable and shareable; rev…

I see, thanks for your feedback. Could you email me at support at historio dot us, as I don't have your email?

Thanks again!

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