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Instapaper is joining Pinterest

blog.instapaper.com

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Re: Instapaper is joining Pinterest

#131

Post by heliostatic »

idlewords wrote: post #39
leejoramo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the link to Wallabag, I had never heard of it. Looks very interesting. I use Pinboard, and pay for the archiving option. I even periodically request a tarball of the archive for my own backup. Pinboard archives the entire page, not just a readable version of the content. For archival and reference purposes, I like this. It would be nice if Pinboard also provided a readable option. In fact, a number of the…

I'm cool with the idea of providing a readable option in Pinboard, since I already do something similar to get the text out of the page for indexing. Any library for this you particularly like?

This would be great! A while back I signed up for Paperback (https://readpaperback.com/) to handle this for my Pinboard account, and then wrote my own using the Ruby Readability library.

Re: Instapaper is joining Pinterest

#132

Post by bthdonohue »

joshuak wrote: post #110
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 f…

Firstly, I built text-to-speech playlists so I'm glad that you're enjoying that feature and making good use of it. It's kind of a weird one but good for driving commutes, etc.

I'll reiterate here that Instapaper will remain as a separate app, with separate functionality, and a focus on the reader. There are no short-term or long-term plans to modify the user experience of Instapaper.

In the blog post we detail that "Instapaper provides a compelling source for news-based content" for Pinterest, and that portions of the parser technology will be used throughout Pinterest.

For Instapaper, it means leveraging the technical expertise, support, and resources at Pinterest.

Re: Instapaper is joining Pinterest

#133

Post by tedmiston »

defen wrote: post #73
idlewords wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Does this mean they're now guilty of trademark infringement (Apple Computers vs Apple Records style) and you can take all their VC money? "Instapaper By Pinterest™" seems pretty similar to Pinboard.

Yes, Pinboard with his massive legal team.

Re: Instapaper is joining Pinterest

#134

Post by bthdonohue »

tedmiston wrote: post #111
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…

> As we focus on the future of the user experience, we’ll be sunsetting our developer product, Instaparser. Starting today, we will cease signups for Instaparser and halt billing for existing customers. In order to ensure a smooth transition for current users, we will keep Instaparser running until November 1, 2016. Is this suggesting the Instapaper API will close or become more restricted as well?

No plans to change the Instapaper API.

Re: Instapaper is joining Pinterest

#136

Post by bthdonohue »

semerda wrote: post #113
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…

Congrats on the acquisition. Been a fan/user from the early days when Marco ran it. Best "read it later" product hands down. Should Pinterest kill Instapaper would you folks be willing to open source it like FB/Parse?

There are no plans to kill the product so we haven't had those discussions.

Re: Instapaper is joining Pinterest

#137

Post by BinaryIdiot »

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…

> 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 those are the plan for the short-term or long-term of the product, and I am personally looking forward to providing you with the same great service under a new owner.

As a person who has been part of a small company / start-up acquisition 2 times now this is literally the line every single CEO says when they're bought. Now I'm not saying you're lying but plans change and except for very, very few exceptions this is always wrong.

Congratulations either way and I wish you luck!

Re: Instapaper is joining Pinterest

#138

Post by kstrauser »

tedmiston wrote: post #121
lukasb wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a mobile client you like? I remember being frustrated by what I could find for Pinboard, as far as replacing Instapaper.

I enjoy Pinner for iOS - http://pinnerapp.net/ .

I very happily second that recommendation. For OS X, Spillo is quite wonderful.

Re: Instapaper is joining Pinterest

#139

Post by bigethan »

sambe wrote: post #119
brians wrote: post #15

Bummer. I love and use instapaper, gathering articles for a few weeks to read at altitude. It's a great product, and I paid for a subscription these last years in the hopes that I could therefore continue to enjoy it. Now it's sold to Pinterest, one of the two sites I don't bother with links to—because I know Pinterest and Quora will require me to sign in rather than show me what they showed a search engine. What els…

Agree. This happened to two other services I like this week as well. It's been puzzling me for a while though: doesn't Google punish the behaviour you mention?

Not yet, but soon: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/08/helping-users-easi...

Re: Instapaper is joining Pinterest

#140

Post by RistrettoATS »

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…

Hey Brian,

First off congratulations on making a huge business decision like this - I'm sure it's not easy. And secondly thank you for putting yourself out here like this for us to talk to.

I rely on Instapaper every day to keep track of the reading that fuels my writing. I love that it's an awesome reading experience, that it syncs so well between devices, that it's keeping an archive of what I've read, and that it's so easy to share out to other apps and services.

I suppose I'm most worried that the experience that I - and many other users - have come to know and love will change, even in small ways. I'm imagining a reading UI with a little "save to pinterest" logo at the top and shuddering. Or some frankensteins' monster of a pinterest-board for my reading queue. Or being unable to share links or quotes to apps other than Pinterest.

I know you've said the team has no plans to make those sorts of changes to the product and user-experience, but how do you as a team know that you'll have that choice under the new ownership?

Either way, I'll be sticking around as a premium user for as long as I can. The app has brought me a lot of joy over the years, and I'm not feeling eager at the thought of potentially leaving it.

Cheers.

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