
The Secret Power of ‘Read It Later’ Apps - walterbell
https://medium.com/better-humans/the-secret-power-of-read-it-later-apps-6c75cc37ef42#.dy1vpda8b
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pdkl95
The "secret power" of Pocket is that someone is making money off selling
detailed information on what people red, probably including when, where,
probably how long a given document is read. They aren't offering their
bandwidth and storage as some sort of charity; those server costs are
obviously being covered by surveillance-as-a-business-model.

The database Pocket is building is an incredibly tempting target for many
different groups (governments, insurance companies, etc). Even if Pocket isn't
using that data (unlikely), the probability of leaks/theft is high.

Building a better bookmark system is a good idea. Such a system doesn't need
network access. If for some reason you need to share between devices, a
socially responsible bookmark/read-it-later tool would be encrypting at the
endpoints so an opaque encrypted blob is the only thing stored remotely.
(prior art: the original Firefox "sync")

~~~
athenot
Safari has a Reading List which also syncs between devices and downloads the
content in case one doesn't have internet access. It may not be an open-source
solution and it's only within the Apple ecosystem but at least it's run by a
company that is increasingly differentiating itself by how it is NOT
monetizing its users' content. For me, that's good enough.

Having said that, I'd love to see an open (or at least extensible) and private
bookmark system.

~~~
z1mm32m4n
There's always wallabag[1]. It's self-hostable and open source. You can even
install it using sovereign[2].

[1]: [https://www.wallabag.org/](https://www.wallabag.org/)

[2]:
[https://github.com/sovereign/sovereign](https://github.com/sovereign/sovereign)

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AdmiralAsshat
The unmentioned perk of 'Read it Later' apps that I haven't seen mentioned:
downloading the articles ahead of time while you're on home wifi.

On my phone it's really not a big deal, since the data consumption is minimal.
But I like to do longform reading on my Nexus 7, which is a wi-fi only model,
and the places where I'm liable to sit around for an hour (i.e. the doctor's
office, the gym, a lo-fi coffee shop, etc.) usually don't have accessible wi-
fi. The ability for the tablet to sync with Pocket while it's on wifi and have
everything cached when I'm off is extremely useful.

~~~
pc86
I think you're doing the gym wrong if you've got a lot of downtime where you
can also read :)

~~~
flying_kangaroo
A lot of heavy powerlifting programs have a few minutes rest between sets,
which while not great for longform, does allow for a minute or two reading
once your heartrate comes down a tad

~~~
ulisesrmzroche
It's supposed to be active rest, and even then, if your heart-rate is low
enough to where you can comfortably read anything, you're definitely not
working out with enough intensity to matter, let alone call it power-lifting.
You should be dreading the next set, basically, and get right back on it
before your heartrate comes down.

~~~
presidentender
I am interested in the source of your expertise

------
tspike
_A recent article in the Harvard Business Review puts a name to this new
neurological phenomenon: Attention Deficit Trait. Basically, the terms ADD and
ADHD are falling out of use because effectively the entire population fits the
diagnostic criteria. It’s not a condition anymore, it’s a trait — the inherent
and unavoidable experience of modern life characterized by “distractibility,
inner frenzy, and impatience.”_

This stood out to me, and warrants a discussion of its own. What was widely
considered maladaptive to the point of being a mental disorder is now common
to the entire population? Do we accept this as a new reality or are there
steps we can take to restore flow, reduce interruptions, and enhance
concentration at a macro level?

~~~
dimitar
No, the referred article doesn't claim that. In fact it draws a distinction
between people having ADD and people with ADT.

Have a look: [https://hbr.org/2005/01/overloaded-circuits-why-smart-
people...](https://hbr.org/2005/01/overloaded-circuits-why-smart-people-
underperform)

 _Unlike ADD, a neurological disorder that has a genetic component and can be
aggravated by environmental and physical factors, ADT springs entirely from
the environment. Like the traffic jam, ADT is an artifact of modern life. It
is brought on by the demands on our time and attention that have exploded over
the past two decades. As our minds fill with noise—feckless synaptic events
signifying nothing—the brain gradually loses its capacity to attend fully and
thoroughly to anything._

~~~
whoopdedo
If ADD is genetic in origin, why isn't a DNA test used to diagnose the
condition?

~~~
car
That's a good question. There are a lot of conditions where twin and adoption
studies have established a genetic predispositions decades ago, but the exact
cause of these disorders is unknown, and understood to be more stochastic in
nature.

Rather then single gene mutations, such complex disease predispositions could
be combinations of single base variations in the binding sites of
transcription factors and/or slight variations in proteins, which elevate
disease risk, but may still require environmental factors for an actual
outbreak.

Our understanding here is improving rapidly, while we are learning about the
regulatory elements in our genome (see the ENCODE project), and the influence
of the 3D arrangement of the genome into what is known as chromatin.

However, teasing apart these variations and causal relationships is extremely
complex, as you can imagine.

Bottom line, there is still so much we don't know or understand, but progress
is being made.

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rpgmaker
A clean reading layout was the gateway drug that introduced me to "read it
later" apps and really changed my reading habits in the process, making this
sort of app a mainstay on my devices.

As a side note, I hadn't gone on Medium after they put all those little menus
when you scroll up the page. This sucks because medium used to have the best
layout around (specially contemplating the possible alternatives that some
hipster designer could come up with) but they could improve it with adding a
waiting period before bringing up that menu. Bringing it up for a single
scroll up is insane. Sometimes you just want to read a line you missed,
particularly if you're "reading" article quickly.

PS: am I the only one who thinks those persistent bars (usually with page
name/logo, some "share" buttons to other pages, etc.) at the top of a page are
the worst thing to have ever happened in web design? It's pretty much standard
now and it seems that not that many people care.

~~~
ashark
> am I the only one who thinks those persistent bars (usually with page
> name/logo, some "share" buttons to other pages, etc.) at the top of a page
> are the worst thing to have ever happened in web design? It's pretty much
> standard now and it seems that not that many people care.

If it's a page that'll take longer than a few seconds to read, I usually open
up the developer console and delete the element. I have _never once_ later
wanted anything from the "helpful" pop-down menu and had to reload to get it
back.

~~~
rpgmaker
I just open the article in one of the "read it later" services (via
bookmarklet) without saving it to your account. Most services offer this.

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DennisP
> So you need a little entertainment, and you open…an ebook?

Yes. My Kindle Paperwhite goes with me everywhere.

My ideal "read it later" app would extract the text and send it to kindle.
Maybe append chapters to a single book so all those little articles aren't
cluttering things up.

A reader with a dedicated interface for this would be even better. Divide
articles into categories, let me easily delete or archive them, then
automatically bring up the next article in the category. As long as I'm
dreaming, add search and automatic text summarization, and give me a view that
shows everything I highlighted in a continuous document instead of a bunch of
snippets I have to individually tap to read in full.

~~~
packetslave
_My ideal "read it later" app would extract the text and send it to kindle.
Maybe append chapters to a single book so all those little articles aren't
cluttering things up._

Instapaper does this.

~~~
DennisP
Didn't know that. You may have just changed my internet reading habits.

~~~
masklinn
[https://david-smith.org/blog/2012/10/11/instapaper-on-the-
ki...](https://david-smith.org/blog/2012/10/11/instapaper-on-the-kindle-
paperwhite/)

You can configure instapaper to regularly send your queue in kindle magazine
format. Apparently there's also a bookmarklet to send a single article
directly to your kindle.

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neves
The secret power of these apps is that I don't waste time reading bullshit in
the Internet. I see an interesting page in HN, go to it, click in "Read Later"
and Instapaper will send it to my Kindle. Now there's 99% of chance that I'll
never read it, but I won't fill the urge to read it instead of working. Win!
Win!

~~~
baby
That's mostly what happens to me. And then I travel, or I go to a cafe, or I
commute. And either because I don't have internet, or because I am in a
different setting, I open Pocket. And then I read, I read, ... only the good
content I knew I would want to read given the right moment, the right amount
of attention.

Pocket it's just awesome.

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TTPrograms
I "read" tens of articles a day through various forms, but I wouldn't add up
the words and equate it to reading books. Most of the articles I see are so
padded with verbiage that they just get a quick skim - I like being exposed to
the stories and ideas they contain, but I feel like if anything I'm trading
the ability to deep-read like I do with technical literature for the ability
to skim.

I guess my point is that it's pretty rare that I see an article that I think
merits the sort of deep reading that the author is espousing (for reasons
other than recreation, that is). Maybe that's just a function of the
literature I expose myself to.

~~~
such_a_casual
I think this is a really important point. It's dangerous to think that reading
x amount of articles is the same as reading a book. With a book, you're taking
one idea and going into immense detail over the course of a day, a week, or a
month. Additionally, the size of books encourages and even requires in many
instances that they be written with some degree of organization. This means
it's much easier for the reader to find the information they're looking for
and to skip over information they already understand. Most of the articles I
read are poorly written. They fail the reader by not introducing important
information (such as their point) as soon as possible. In fact, authors will
purposely leave out all the important information til the end in a hubris
effort to sensationalize the piece. This means that the best way for someone
to read these articles is actually backwards (so you don't commit 15 minutes
of reading just to find out you don't care about what the author actually had
to say). It's silly, and I don't think I've ever seen it done in any book that
I've actually read.

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such_a_casual
I like the idea of better bookmarks. Is there a bookmark app that doesn't
collect my data and associate it with an email address? I find the fact that
Pocket needs an email address appalling in this day in age with all of the
privacy concerns. Even then, I don't want some company storing my bookmarks.
The U.S. government has proven that they can get data from any website they
want to and it's none of their business what we read. I'm not paying them to
read my bookmarks, and I'm not going to enable them.

~~~
walterbell
On iOS, 2Doapp and Omnifocus have Safari plugins for saving links locally to a
designated list or project in the app. 2Do can sync via CalDav and Omnifocus
can sync via WebDav, to a self-hosted Linux VM, for optional cross-device
sync.

What is missing is an app that will perform text analysis of the content
behind the bookmarks, either on the mobile device or in the self-hosted VM.
Computing "related stories" in the VM would conserve mobile device power.

------
balladeer
I have been doing my bookmarking with Pinboard.in which also happens to have a
"Read It Later" feature that I've been using now after I stopped using Pocket
and Firefox few months ago (stopped using them together). It works really
great. On OSX I use Shiori app (for both bookmarking and RIL) and on Android I
use Pindroid (a 3rd party app) that adds two options "bookmark" and "read it
later" options in Android's "share" pick menu.

However I must say their official browser extensions leave a lot to be desired
and that honestly is sad.

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wodenokoto
Am I the only one who cannot understand why "read it later" would rebrand
themselves as pocket?

"Pocket" could be anything. A small physical object, or in this case a
service. But even as a service you can imagine tons of different services that
could go by that name.

And they couldn't even get the domain pocket.com.

Meanwhile they had readitlater.com, and a name that screamed "if you want to
read this later, we are the defacto standard"

Why would you throw out such good branding?

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positr0n
I've tried this approach and one thing that I couldn't fit in my workflow was
consuming HN comments. Many times I find the comments as valuable as the
article, but no read it later app will

A) format the comments section sanely AND

B) update the comments so if I save an article when it has 5 comments I can
browse the comments later when it has 100 comments.

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habosa
I know I am missing the point here, but Pocket's stats seem a little off to
me.

It claims at 1M words is about 22 books. Googling around it seems like ~90k
words is a normal adult book. So 1M words is more like reading 11 books, not
22. Pocket is assuming people read very short books (which may be the case).

~~~
zeckalpha
When I was using it I got a similar email. I was using more like a bookmarking
service than a reading service, so my guess the numbers were more about
pocketed items than read items.

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mrdrozdov
My "Read It Later" app is SimpleNote. I have a text file which I append every
article I like.

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kevindeasis
The authors comment about algorithm, which is "Personalized, in this case, not
by a cold, unfeeling algorithm, but by your past self"

The hilarious thing is that most of the problem addressed in this article will
hopefully be solved by algorithms, etc. Also, yes, I know that quote was
talking about UI/UX, but it is still funny that this cold unfeeling algorithm
will be the one that will help OP the most about his futuristic pondering.

Also, I'd like to point out that OP makes a great case about not re-inventing
the wheel. Let's think about that for a moment.

How many cases do you guys know about wheel re-invention?

------
cryoshon
Eh, I'm always looking for and consuming longform content... I never have a
backlog because I prefer searching for articles, then consuming them on the
spot, with no effort of indexing. I guess this quickly becomes very hard to
track down exactly what you have read in the past, but if a longform article
is that forgettable, do you really want to read it again?

Good sources for longform: aeon.co, aldaily.com. longform.org has too much
debris to bother with, IMO.

~~~
visakanv
Out of curiosity, what are the top 10 best longform pieces you've ever read?

~~~
cryoshon
I'll give you the top one: Politics and the English Language by Orwell.

Reading this as a young man sent me down a wonderful road of critical thinking
and skepticism and altered my life in a major way... no guarantee it'll do the
same for you, though.

~~~
delish
Another long essay on the english language: Tense Present by David Foster
Wallace. It touches rhetoric, conservatism vs liberalism, and offers advice
w/r/t how to communicate. And it's laugh-out-loud funny.

This is the PDF version. Because this is a magazine article, the PDF captures
formatting detail that an epub version lacks:

[http://harpers.org/wp-
content/uploads/HarpersMagazine-2001-0...](http://harpers.org/wp-
content/uploads/HarpersMagazine-2001-04-0070913.pdf)

~~~
cryoshon
Hm, I can't stand DFW's writing style, but I'll check this out anyway since I
admit he has fruitful thoughts on occasion.

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tychoman
OP here. Really cool to see the discussion here. So much deeper and more
critical than anywhere else. I've made a note of many of the tools mentioned
here and will check them out soon.

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aggieben
TL;DR - saved it in Readability.

 _ducks_

