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Instapaper is joining Pinterest

blog.instapaper.com

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Re: Instapaper is joining Pinterest

#151

Post by bthdonohue »

RistrettoATS wrote: post #140
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'…

Thanks for your thoughtful comment Ristretto!

The product, engineering, and design folks at Pinterest are very smart and I think we all know that forcing integrations into Pinterest like the ones you're describing would really damage the user experience for end-users.

I've already built Pinterest integration for Instapaper, which you can link like other social accounts at http://instapaper.com/user. You can see how this integration looks on my Pinterest account: https://www.pinterest.com/bthdonohue/instapaper/

I will be a strong advocate against integrations that I would perceive to damage the user experience for Instapaper.

Lastly, thanks for your support over the years. I'm looking forward to continue bringing you the same great service at Pinterest.

Re: Instapaper is joining Pinterest

#152

Post by bthdonohue »

gesher wrote: post #117
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…

Since you've told us what you believe are NOT part of the short-term or long-term plans, why don't you tell us what you think the short-term or (preferably) long-term plans include?

Hi Natan!

Here's from the blog post: "Instapaper provides a compelling source for news-based content, and we’re excited to take those learnings to Pinterest’s discovery products. We’ll also be experimenting with using our parsing technology for certain Rich Pin types."

Outside of operating Instapaper normally, those are the things we'll be working on with the Pinterest team.

Brian

Re: Instapaper is joining Pinterest

#153

Post by bthdonohue »

stonogo wrote: post #146
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…

Ah, no material changes to the end-user experience, just a shitload of backend personal-data shuttling. Abhorrent.

We will be using the signals from Instapaper to power some news-based discovery within Pinterest, however, those signals will be used in aggregate in a manner similar to which we use them for the Instapaper Daily and Instapaper Weekly offerings.

Re: Instapaper is joining Pinterest

#154

Post by nroach »

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…

How do I get my data out of instapaper, if I don't want Pinterest using my reading history for targeting me or sharing with their data brokers?

Re: Instapaper is joining Pinterest

#155

Post by bthdonohue »

jeffrand wrote: post #23
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…

The post says that, at least for the time being, nothing is going to change for their users. Hopefully you wont be forced to sign into Pinterest to use Instapaper.

That will not be the case, Jeff.

Re: Instapaper is joining Pinterest

#157

Post by bthdonohue »

fishtoaster wrote: post #31

> The Instapaper team will be moving from betaworks in New York City to Pinterest’s headquarters in San Francisco I wonder how the instapaper team feels about that (and/or how much say they had in it).

The team was open to moving to SF as part of the acquisition. Also, there are only three of us so it wasn't as if many people were uprooted.

Re: Instapaper is joining Pinterest

#158

Post by donretag »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #137
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 com…

Considering they are forcing the team to move to SF, there is no way Instapaper will exist in one year.

Re: Instapaper is joining Pinterest

#159

Post by tb303 »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #137
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 com…

Just came here to say that too. There's a fair amount of hubris in the founder/ceo promising things they cannot promise. I realize bthdonohue is doing it for the sake of employees and their enthusiasm to continue with the acquisition, but making claims like this undermines your credibility when you EOL the product in two years.

(I was part of one of these acquisitions and thankfully our founder made no such promises, and instead told us "nothing is going to change right now, but I can't tell you what the future holds for us")

Re: Instapaper is joining Pinterest

#160

Post by d_theorist »

exolymph wrote: post #116
d_theorist wrote: post #103

Is anybody else mildly annoyed by this trend of announcing acquisitions as 'x is joining y'? What's wrong with saying that y has bought x?

Don't they imply slightly different things? To me "joining" says merging teams and product goals, whereas "bought" could mean the smaller entity will still be freestanding.

Perhaps. To me it sounds like a bit of a weasely and vague term. But of course different people use words differently.
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