71–80 of 134 posts
BTW, it is the greatest procrastination killer. Instead of reading HN articles during my work hours, I send them to my kindle and -- usually :-) -- never finish to read them. A great time saver!
This smells like an app that will be shutting down in about six months.
Does anyone have experience to share re: Instapaper vs. Pocket (or something better)?
Pocket lacks the very useful send-to-kindle feature in Instapaper. Instapaper frequently fails to send images properly in their kindle digests, but it's still better than nothing (the key feature IMO). On the other hand, the Instapaper iOS app has some kind of problem with syncing, taking an inordinate amount of time to download a few articles (with the potential to ding you with substantial data costs if you open th…
This smells like an app that will be shutting down in about six months.
Brian from Instapaper here. We have no plans to shut the app down, and a big part of the value the app provides (parser improvements, aggregate information on links) requires the ongoing operation of the service.
This is a pretty empty claim without a minimum time frame. It would also be more convincing if it came from Ben Silbermann...
Hope you forgive the skepticism but I've seen too many start ups being acquired and happily singing the "Our buyer has full confidence in us and will let us operate with 100% independence" cliché quickly followed a few months later by "We are sorry to announce that we're shutting down".
So what's the plan here. Just two months since Pinterest acquired them, they've shutdown Instaparser, moved their team across the country (literally: NY to SF.. I wonder how many employees quit instead), discontinued Premium--their sole source of revenue(?), and committed to no-ads... sounds like they have no monetization strategy at all anymore. This doesn't look good.
On the one hand I like new free features, especially the search. On the other hand Instapaper got acquired by Pinterest ( http://blog.instapaper.com/post/149374303661 ) and if they no longer make money from premium subscriptions and the service is ads-free, then how will they generate revenue? Selling publishers premium spots in my reading queue?
Either Pinterest is interested in running Instapaper at a loss, or they've found a way to make this financially worth their while. Or they want to grow Instapaper at the expense of Pocket, and then do something else with it. Disclaimer: I am a competitor to Instapaper and talk smack a lot.
> The value Instapaper provides to Pinterest in terms of parser capabilities and aggregate information about links is enough to justify the small operation cost of running the service.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hello, Brian! I hope you will take my skepticism in good humor. While I would delight in Instapaper's prolonged availability, I trust you are aware of the widespread perception that acquisition is where startups go to die [0], to say nothing of the fact that some of Instapaper's competitors have also fallen to the wayside [1]. The final red-light comes from the tendency to make services free right before they shut do…
I understand and appreciate the skepticism, however, the reason we're making this change is because we want to provide the best experience for our users. Pinterest receives value from the ongoing operation of Instapaper in the form of continued parsing improvements and aggregate information about links on the web, and that value is enough to justify our relatively small operating costs.
So what's the plan here. Just two months since Pinterest acquired them, they've shutdown Instaparser, moved their team across the country (literally: NY to SF.. I wonder how many employees quit instead), discontinued Premium--their sole source of revenue(?), and committed to no-ads... sounds like they have no monetization strategy at all anymore. This doesn't look good.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hello, Brian! I hope you will take my skepticism in good humor. While I would delight in Instapaper's prolonged availability, I trust you are aware of the widespread perception that acquisition is where startups go to die [0], to say nothing of the fact that some of Instapaper's competitors have also fallen to the wayside [1]. The final red-light comes from the tendency to make services free right before they shut do…
I understand and appreciate the skepticism, however, the reason we're making this change is because we want to provide the best experience for our users. Pinterest receives value from the ongoing operation of Instapaper in the form of continued parsing improvements and aggregate information about links on the web, and that value is enough to justify our relatively small operating costs.