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Comment by huggyface | Hacker News Reader

This is likely true: there are a number of Instapaper similes that are available now, many gratis (if your time/screen space are free, though that is a different conversation).

I hope that we don't see a "this confirms all my suspicions about Android" type of post in the coming months. The market is nothing like it was when Instapaper first hit it big on iOS (during a period where some of the biggest yielding apps were "Where's my car" and flashlight type products).

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To be fair to Pocket it would be better to say Instapaper is a simile of it, as Read-It-Later (Pocket's original name) was first.

edit: Read-It-Later was a web service initially. The idea behind it is the same as Instapaper. Instapaper released a mobile app before Read-It-Later (though Read-It-Later was around as early as 2007).

Please don't try to rewrite history. Instapaper was first and basically invented the space. The oldest comment in the iTunes reviews for Instapaper are from Aug 28, 2008 which is before the Android Market even existed. Read it Later originally launched in 2009.

Edit: Read-It-Later appears to have launched Apr 8, 2009.

http://blog.ideashower.com/post/15139665330/read-it-later-ip...

Read-It-Later came out in 2007, the mobile application came later.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocket_(application)

Read-It-Later started as an article bookmarking system, and then pivoted to be like Instapaper (article parsing and delivery to a mobile app). Calling Read-It-Later older than Instapaper is like calling Bing older than Google. Bing is an evolution of msn search and Microsoft is older than Google.

Calling Instapaper a simile of Read-It-Later stikes me as misleading.

To call Bing older than Google seems entirely true to me (if nothing else, Bing is the heir to Yahoo search). Google was by no means the first search engine, and didn't transform the market or create one where there was previously none - they simply did it better than everyone else.

"Read It Later, whose Firefox extension (but not web or iPhone app) actually predated Instapaper,"

http://www.marco.org/2010/05/19/on-read-it-later

Out of interest, what's Pocket's business model?

Giving away stuff for free till the VC money runs out. Startup lottery.

Yeah kinda seems that that way doesn't it? I gladly paid for read it later and was surprised when they transitioned to free without any apparent source of income..

This was Marco and other iOS developers' mistake. If they wait too long to come to Android, there will be established competitors on the platform, and instead of being considered a market leader, they might even have to play catch-up with those already established on Android.

This is the same reason why even Microsoft has decided to make Office for iOS and Android. They can't just ignore 700 million users (and soon to be much bigger) just because they'd want people to use Windows instead. Windows is a big cash cow for Microsoft, but so is Office (about as big in revenue), and they can't risk losing the Office market to others, and not getting to decide the future format for docs, and other benefits they now get from being the absolute Office leader.

I assume Microsoft's Office for iOS/Android is just a slightly adapted webview of the online version.

I doubt Microsoft will make a native iOS version of Office. Simply for the reason that they'll have to distribute through the AppStore, meaning Apple will take a 30% cut. I don't think Microsoft would be ok with Apple talking a cut on a product like Office.

I'm leaning towards the theory that Microsoft will release a "free for existing customers" mobile version of Office. I'd thought the primary motivation would be to deal with their cannibalization concerns, but it would also avoid issues like Apple's slice.

>This was Marco and other iOS developers' mistake.

How so? Instapaper is literally one developer; isn't it better to be a market leader on one platform than to spread yourself across two platforms and dilute both applications?

It sounds like once the right team approached him (one that he trusted the quality and business ethics of, and he knew their work) he cut a deal for an Android version.

To me, that seems like an optimal use of limited resources.

The guess here: http://www.quora.com/Instapaper/How-much-money-does-Instapap...

Is that Instapaper nets somewhere in the $1-2M range. I'd hardly call that "limited resources." The ability to staff up and/or outsource work effectively is an important skill for a business. You don't get a do-over just because you want to do all the work yourself.

That source says that that money is over the apps lifetime. So divide that by 4 (?) and its starting to become more limited. EDIT to include the quote (the low end of the scale starts to make things quite tight by my guestimating):

>>> TL;DR: Final estimate is somewhere between 0.15% to 0.60% of the iOS market, netting it somewhere between $875k to $2.3m for the duration of its existence (not yearly)<<<

Instapaper is a place, time AND device shifting service for content. Its market leader position on one or two devices was made more precarious by not branching out as soon as possible to as many devices as possible.

Marco's personal inclination was to support only platforms that he himself used—that's why he built a free service into Instapaper for the Kindle platform while ignoring the Android platform. I initially had an iPhone and an iPad, on which I owned the Instapaper client, then upgraded to an Android phone. I promptly switched to another service with support for my platform.

All fair points, but history demonstrated that Marco was doing much more than making a rational business decision. I would say that he suffered under the delusion that his blog posts would change the market (let's call it the Gruber Complex). Instead of rationally understanding and analyzing the market he spit venom and conjecture against Android, under the seemingly bizarre notion that it would halt its rise.

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