Hacker News Reader

Comment by mlapida | Hacker News Reader

I've been using Instapaper for at least two years, and I've been following a handful of people since Twitter integration was implemented, but to this day I very rarely check the social sharing of articles on the service. There are already sites for sharing articles. Does anyone use the sharing features?

View on HN

Liked the idea and used it initially, but it gets tired quickly, due to the implementation detail. When you see a recommendation, you have to open the article in order to Read Later. So it takes at least a few seconds for every recommendation. I often want to use the feature before a flight, where I want to add 10 or so articles. If you're on a 2.5G or 3G network, that means clicking on the recommendation, waiting 20 or 30 seconds, then clicking on the next one.

If Marco's reading, please add a "Read Later" button against the recommendation (possible on desktop with an extension).

I follow a handful of people on Instapaper and check the friends list for new content now and again, but rarely do I see anything there.

It's like I'm the only one who regularly "likes" the best articles I'm reading. I wish this weren't the case.

Same here. I'm following everyone Instapaper could find in my contacts (six people, if I recall) but I've never seen any of them like an article.

I completely respect Marco's goal of not building yet-another-social-network, but it is true that the social features are so minimal that I never really use them. I don't need Instapaper to be a social network, and I don't need it suggesting that I that I read something new ever five minutes, but if there were a a few 'suggested reads' instead of the 'social bar', I wouldn't complain ;)

never used the social sharing features, expect to maybe post an article to Facebook once. Its funny, its the opposite of Buzz. Marco realizes that people view Instapaper as a mainly private place, that on occasion a person wants to share something from. This is also the function gmail accounts play in many peoples lives, which is why buzz was not well received.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com