Marco Arment sees a bright future for read-it-later services, and says that Instapaper’s acquisition by Betaworks will allow it to get some new features that he hasn’t had time to add. Read more at paidContent »
New media incubator Betaworks has acquired Marco Arment’s popular read-it-later platform Instapaper. Betaworks acquired Digg last year, and the firm is focusing on both short-form and long-form content companies. Read more at paidContent »
Marco Arment, who is the co-creator of Tumblr and the brainiac behind Instapaper in his widely read blog disagrees with my take on Google Keep. And here is my response to his response. Actually we both make sense, somehow! Read more »
Google Reader was doomed to fail from the very beginning: the company never really believed in it and it took big effort on part of a small team to make it work. Chris Wetherell, original creator & part of the Reader team reflects on past & the future. Read more »
Marco Arment softened the paywall around his iPad-only magazine because his content was not benefiting from the social-sharing effect that the web enables — a microcosm of the dilemma that many other publishers are also facing. Read more at paidContent »
Just when many people seemed to think it was dead, new ventures like Svbtle and Medium are trying to reinvent blogging by adding curation and other elements. How they plan to monetize their content, however, remains a mystery. Read more at paidContent »
Fewer publishers are treating apps as a make-or-break business decision. Instead, a shift in the economics of app making means publishers can choose from a wider variety of app options that are tailored to the type of content they produce. Read more at paidContent »
Many startups like Tumblr and Airbnb have become successful because they focused on filling a need that their founders had, and then turned that into a business, and there are a number of important lessons in that kind of approach for traditional media companies. Read more »
Marco Arment, one of the most creative publishers in the digital world, is trying his hand at one of the most conventional formats in the business — the magazine. Read more »
How much security is too much? Apple’s sandboxing rules for its Mac App Store are supposed to keep malware in check, but the developer of MPlayerX is charging that it prevents the video player from loading subtitles. MPlayerX isn’t the fist app to leave the store. Read more »
The reaction to Twitter’s restrictions on its API has focused mostly on whether the moves are unfair to third-party developers and apps. But what about the impact they will have on users? Twitter seems to care more about monetizing its network than what users want. Read more »
Facebook plans to introduce “read-it-later” features into its mobile app. That shouldn’t come as a surprise, because this was one of the core offerings of Spool, a tiny startup Facebook acquired earlier this summer. Read more »
Freemium can only offer the hope that customers will fall in love with your product and be willing to pay for it later. This is a scattershot approach to monetization. Rags Srinivasan argues that it’s time to take a deliberate and more targeted approach. Read more »
The popular iPhone client Tweetbot will now have an application for Mac, an exciting development for fans of the product, but an interesting development to come just as Twitter has announced plans to restrict third-party use of its API and keep Twitter users on Twitter products. Read more »
Many online media outlets continue to rewrite news without providing a link to the original source, but doing this is both rude and short-sighted: Linking is one of the fundamental underpinnings of the internet and a crucial part of the culture of the web. Read more »
The true impact of the launch of the iPhone probably has as much to do with the software that was eventually created on Apple smartphone as much as that smartphone itself, thanks to developers who saw an opportunity and a revolutionary approach to mobile software. Read more »
Another of the most popular iOS applications makes the move to Android as Instapaper becomes available in Google Play. Marco Arment, Instapaper’s creator, has noted that Android users prefer free software, so will they buy his app or opt for a free alternative? Read more »
If the Apple rumor machine is to be believed, we might soon see a lighter, skinnier and bigger brother of the current Macbook Airs. News of new Intel chips to be released in April adds credence to rumors of a 15-inch Macbook Pro and Air. Read more »
The trends have been in place for a while — sales of standalone cameras are in decline thanks to the growing popularity of camera phones. No amount of whiz-bang technology can compete with convenience. It is also redefining photography, thanks to network connections and apps. Read more »
Social startup Allthis found itself under fire this week for a viral marketing approach many people found spammy and invasive. But heinous though it is, its behavior is just part of a trend among new services to appropriate our online identities to power themselves. Read more »
Marco Arment, the former CTO of the Tumblr blog platform, is best known these days for his time-shifting reading app Instapaper. But he could start a side-job as a financial advisor to start-ups. His motto: Get the money from your customers, not investors. Arment’s more traditional […] Read more »
“Read Later – ⌘4”. I live my life by it. I find an interesting article but have no time to read it – ⌘4. A crazy-long message in Gmail that’s just perfect for, um, ‘bathroom reading’ – ⌘4. Pretty much anything that demands attention but can […] Read more »
