

Ask HN: Review my web application - tannerburson
http://www.markitforlater.com

======
pclark
Hi, I like this.

\+ Kudos for entering a market that already has leaders (delicious &
instapaper for example)

\+ I'd like to see some delicious integration, be it sending it to my
delicious -- or the other way around (grabbing links tagged with
"markitforlater"

\+ the UI is gorgeous, the name is good.

\- how do i remove links I accidently marked?

\- when you first register, make it do something other than redirect you to
/links/ -- I make a new account and the first thing I get is a blank page?
whoop ... :) I want to know some good reading sources, I want to b taken back
to the homepage for more instructions.

\- the bookmarklet is a bit slow, the transparent thing takes a few seconds to
appear causing me to think it didnt work.

~~~
tannerburson
To your points.

I've intentionally left out the delete function, nothing lasts longer than a
week without manual intervention. Despite using the service daily, I can't
think of any cases outside of me manually messing with data as tests that I've
missed having a delete.

This is a great idea, and I'll definitely be making a new initial login
"landing" page!

There's something odd in my Apache setup, as the slowness looks like it's from
load, but there's not that much strain on the box. The other issue, which I've
tried to optimize as much as possible, is that it loads a LOT of JS when you
click the bookmarklet, and it doesn't show the message until it's all done. I
need really should pare that down some more, thanks for the push!

~~~
pclark
no probs - and quick response. That instantly gives you a huge edge over
del.icio.us (INTEGRATE AMIGO!)

~~~
tannerburson
Well, what's the user story that you see for delicious? Pushing bookmarks to
delicious before they expire? That's the only scenario I can see being
worthwhile, but as someone who swore of delicious long, long ago, I'm
definitely open to ideas here!

~~~
pclark
hmm, a good point actually. Forgot you remove stories after a week. I
currently tag my delicious stories that I need to read later with "readlater"
-- if I could import those direct to your site that'd be cool. Not sure if I
could get thru them all in a week though!

~~~
tannerburson
Importing to me seems like an odd workflow though. Bookmark with delicious,
import to markitforlater, read from there, links expire (or not depending on
what you do), but are still hanging out in delicious. Again, the only net-
positive workflow I could see would be: bookmark with markitforlater, decide
you want to keep it around "permanently" so you push it to delicious. As a
delicious user, does that sort of thing have any appeal to you?

~~~
pclark
yes, that makes far more sense! ignore my previous delicious ranting.

------
tlrobinson
How's this different/better than Instapaper?

~~~
tannerburson
Instapaper primarily targets the mobile market with it's main feature being
the reformatting of pages for offline viewing. (And damn is it a cool, and
extremely well done feature.)

My focus is on making a lean, cross browser, bookmarking site with a focus on
short-term storage. If you don't opt-out of the feature you can get a reminder
the day before any links expire in case you forget to read one.

This app grew out of the habit I had of emailing articles to myself several
times a week so I could go back and read them after work, or at lunch, or
whenever. I realized there had to be a better way. Looked at a few of the
other sites around at that time, didn't really like any of them, so I wrote my
own.

One of the big reasons I wrote my own was that I'm addicted to interfaces like
Hacker News and Reddit. Simple, concise, and almost exclusively text only. I
modeled the link-list on that idea. The one twist being, thanks to some nifty
JS code, that the longer a link hangs out on your list the more faded it
becomes. To me this makes it a much quicker and easier interface to get in,
find what I need, and get out. I carried the same idea through to the
bookmarklet in that it doesn't redirect you to the MarkitForLater site when
adding a link. Instead it adds it in the background and notifies you once it's
done, this way you can continue reading, or move on with minimal interruption.

In summary, I think MarkitForLater provides a minimal impact on the way you
browse, while still providing a useful service.

I think Instapaper is one hell of a cool application and has definitely earned
it's place in the market. I won't tell you which is better for you, but I know
which one I use ;)

------
daemon
I think your tag line should read "a naturally zesty enterprise" as opposed to
"a natural zesty enterprise". And what is it, exactly, that makes you "zesty?"

~~~
tannerburson
It's actually an out of context quote from the film "The Big Lebowski". A copy
of the quote can be found on this page.

[http://www.listology.com/content_show.cfm/content_id.20733/M...](http://www.listology.com/content_show.cfm/content_id.20733/Movies)

As for what makes me zesty, well, you should follow the link for a bit more of
an explanation.

------
speby
Good start. Have you looked at apps that do somewhat similar things? You might
find improvements and/or inspiration to do something better or different.

Also, your site is simple enough that you might consider doing progressive
signup. Don't require an account to start marking things. If they like it,
they can create one later and it will save things into a unique account for
them specifically.

~~~
tannerburson
I have looked at several apps that work in similar ways. The big advantage I
had was that the lists are "private" as well as the ability to get a private
RSS feeds for your list.

I thought very hard about doing progressive signup, but I couldn't find a good
method that didn't require a user to finish the signup on the same machine
they started on. If you have any examples of sites that do this well, or at
least in a way that you like, let me know!

------
paul9290
WoW .... dude you totally ripped off this <http://readitlaterlist.com/> .
ReadItLater has been around since august 2007 and featured on Digg here is an
article from one of Om Malik's network sites <http://tinyurl.com/5bsuf4>

Dude reconsider the name it screams of copycat and a lack of innovation!!!

~~~
HansF
Meh, the problem and it's solution isn't _that_ original so I wouldn't scream
ripoff just yet. Also The other site want's you to install an extension. In my
personal experience (a while back so don't know current situation) it was a
bit buggy, and the offline reading thing didn't work very well. With this you
can have sort of the same (minus offline reading). I still prefer delicious
(tag: toread or towatch) though, have to admit I'm a bit of a fan of the
delicious site, so I'm not that objective.

Edit: How do you plan to monetize this service? Or is this more for fun?

~~~
tannerburson
There really aren't any plans to monetize it. If it manages to cover it's own
costs via donations or possibly ad sense, then I'd be happy.

------
pedalpete
I've often thought something like this would be useful, but I'm missing a few
things (and you have a bug, I can't leave my e-mail blank because it says that
e-mial is already taken).

1 - I can't figure out how to add a bookmarklet. I can only add you page 2) I
wouldn't go to a page to enter in the sites to save, that is too much of a
pain in the ass - a browser plug-in would be much better.

~~~
tannerburson
Right click (or the equivalent on your platform) on the link labeled
MarkitForLater Bookmarklet, and add it to your bookmarks. Optionally if you
have the bookmark toolbar enabled in your browser you should be able to drag
that link to it.

Can you elaborate a bit on #2? I'm not sure I get what your getting at.

Edit: And thanks for the bug report, that should be fixed now!

------
PStamatiou
delicious + tag as "toread" is what i've been doing

~~~
tocomment
Any bookmarklets for that? i.e., tag and save it automatically?

~~~
PStamatiou
I have the firefox delicious extension so I just hit Cmd+D then tag it
whatever I want (usually I add all the popular tags) and then type in
"toread." a 3 second process and it works for me.

<http://delicious.com/pstamatiou/toread>

------
tannerburson
I've been developing this site on and off for a few months. It's developed to
the point that I'm able to use it daily without an issue. But I'd love any
opinions/thoughts/concerns from the HN crowd!

------
jgrahamc
Have you seen <http://l8tr.org/> which also scans web sites that are
temporarily down and emails you when they come back up?

------
inimino
Besides only lasting a week, what benefit does this have over clicking on the
star in Firefox 3?

Edit: I like the design.

~~~
tannerburson
This isn't tied to a single location/browser. You can mark sites from your
javascript enabled phone, and read them on your desktop, or vice versa. If you
use the web interface you can have it auto-hide any links you've already
visited through the site. You can also get an RSS feed of your listings so
that you don't NEED to use the web interface if that's your thing.

Edit: Thanks for the mention of the design, I'm far from a designer so I've
been as worried about that aspect as any other.

------
trevorturk
Sorry, but I just don't see a compelling reason to leave Instapaper for it.

~~~
tannerburson
If you're happy with Instapaper then there's nothing to apologize for!

------
slice
markitforlater.com on the footer is missing the l and reads markitforater.com.

~~~
tannerburson
Nice catch, thanks!

------
yeabuddy
how is this any different than delicious?

~~~
tannerburson
It's intentionally non-social, your stuff is yours. It doesn't require a
redirect when adding a bookmark, and in general I find it simpler and quicker
to work with than delicious (especially the newest version).

~~~
yeabuddy
the delicious plugin for firefox is quite handy. i can save a link and tag it
as 'do not share' in about 2 seconds.

sorry man, not trying to bash your idea, but it's been done before :-/.

~~~
tannerburson
I never claimed it was entirely unique. Bookmarking via a bookmarklet has been
around a long while. I took ideas from several places, and then trimmed it
down to the simplest set of functions that solved my problem.

