In the debate surrounding native versus web apps, the mobile web has been getting a bad rap lately. Not least since Zuckerberg famously threw HTML5 under a bus. But for publishers, a mobile website is more often essential, even if they have a shiny so-called “native” app too.

Brow.si, a new product from MySiteApp, is launching in open beta today as an add-on for mobile websites that promises to bring a number of features to rival the engagement of native apps. These include social sharing, a read it later button, subscriptions, and push notifications (sort of). Developers can also create additional extensions for the Brow.si platform to add further desktop web/app-like functionality and monetization options.

Once the Brow.si code has been integrated into a mobile website, the site gets the Brow.si toolbar added to it. Clicking on the toolbar reveals a row of buttons incorporating the new features, which include sharing the page to multiple social networks, a read it later option that ties into Pocket and Readability, and the ability to adjust font size. Further mini-apps are on their way, too. These will come from third-party developers that Brow.si hopes to attract, thus creating a marketplace as part of the platform.

Having all of these features — and more — nicely implemented via a simple to install add-on takes care of much of the heavy lifting for publishers. As simple as it sounds, trying to crowbar in even something as mandatory as social sharing buttons onto a mobile website can be a kludge.

Lastly, Brow.si is talking up its support for push notifications, a first for the mobile web, it claims. A more accurate description, however, might be to call it a bridge between a mobile website with the Brow.si add-on and the Brow.si Reader app, a native iOS app that site visitors are prompted to install. It’s via this native app that the push notifications arrive, even if they originate from a Brow.si-powered mobile website. Cleverly, the Brow.si Reader app is also a fully-fledged browser, meaning that it effectively puts the Brow.si toolbar across any site if viewed within it, which the company will be hoping that users habitually do.

Meanwhile, Brow.si has been selected as a WordPress VIP feature partner, meaning that WordPress VIP customers will be able to install the Brow.si plugin with a single click to add its functionality to their mobile website. It’s also available for a range of other CMS software, including Drupal, Joomla and Blogger.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Pocket, the online service for saving content for later viewing that began life as Read It Later, today announced a brand new version of its API, designed to make things easier and better for its developer partners, which drive a significant portion of its total activity. Forty-five percent of Pocket’s saves come from third-party sources, the company says.

And while Pocket had discussed being on track to hit the 1 million saves per day mark in summer this year, now the company is revealing that it actually exceeds that milestone on a daily basis. In fact, Pocket claims that it’s now among the top-used sharing services in certain apps, including Zite, contending with heavyweights like Twitter and Facebook.

The revamped API introduces OAuth 2, letting users activate pocket in third party apps quicker and reducing friction around saving even further, as well as an Objective-C SDK for easy iOS and Mac development. There’s also the inclusion of Pocket’s recent feature additions, including favorites, filters for narrowing to specific content, better tagging and searching by domain.

Pocket’s API is clearly crucial to its overall strategy, accounting for nearly half of its engagement. And the easier it is for developers to implement Pocket integration, the more likely they will, thereby extending that existing reach. The company also set up a brand new developer site with this release, providing more centralized and organized support for interested third parties.

With refocused attention on the API, the startup may be working on a precursor to revenue generation through this channel, since after switching over from its paid app model with Read It Later, it remains unclear how it plans to monetize. Founder Nate Weiner explained why Pocket opted to become a free service despite being profitable as Read It Later in an earlier blog post, but remained mum on future revenue plans. The company did raise a $5 million Series B in July, however, to help fuel platform and device expansion.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

In a doubling-down by existing investors, Pocket, the content-shifting company formerly known as Read It Later, has raised a $5 million series B round led by Foundation Capital, while Baseline Ventures and Google Ventures also participated. This follows a previous funding round of $2.5m, which all three VC firms participated in (along with Founder Collective, and several angel investors) — so effectively this is a follow on round.

The company plans to use the new funds to bring its “save for later” experience to more devices and platforms, expand its team, and improve its services for developers and content partners.

Pocket, which often draws comparisons to Instapaper, lets users ‘save’ content on the web to read or watch on any device, anytime — otherwise referred to as space-shifting and time-shifting, two concepts almost as old as media itself. The company was actually started before Instapaper in 2007 by founder Nate Weiner who bootstrapped and developed the product almost singlehandedly until early 2011.

Meanwhile, in April 2012, the company relaunched as Pocket, reflecting its support for media beyond just text, and targeting of mobile devices. Along with browser-based versions, Pocket has apps for iOS and Android, and is integrated via its API into more than 350 third-party apps and services including Flipboard, Twitter and Zite. As noted earlier, expect more platforms to be supported — perhaps Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 support could be on the horizon, given Microsoft’s recently unveiled smartphone and tablet plans.

Growth-wise, Pocket claims its nearing 1 million ‘saves’ per-day, making it the number one in its space. These include things as diverse as magazine articles, YouTube videos, recipes and “things to buy”.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.

Built specifically for Google Play consumption, the Nexus 7 tablet built by Asus seems to be Google’s answer to both the iPad and Kindle Fire. So how does it stack up and just how buttery smooth is Jelly Bean?

It’s nearly impossible to say after only a few minutes with the device, but on a superficial level, it’s pretty nice. With an IPS display the screen is vibrant with fairly decent viewing angles. HD videos look sharp. Speaker placement is a bit weird but audio quality sounds pretty good. The textured rear looks and feels high-end.

Jelly Bean is noticeably smoother and faster, including app launching. Due to the screen dimensions, I’m not really digging the magazine experience, though. The ability to go from the normal magazine layout to a text-only format is a nice feature akin to most every other read it later app iOS and Android users have grown accustomed to.

Social sharing between the Nexus 7 and Q for audio and video is seamless and works quite well.

But that’s it for now. I’ll have a more in-depth look at the Nexus 7 later today.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Mark Armstrong founded his site, Longreads, in 2009. Using Twitter hash tags, the site simply aggregated user’s picks for the best long-form non-fiction on the web, offering a poor man’s content curation engine. Now, two years and thousands of stories later, Armstrong will be joining Nate Weiner’s Read It Later as editorial director, where he will collect and curate content for that app’s users.

“Over the past two years with Longreads, I’ve learned so much about the importance of ‘time-shifting’ in helping make long-form content more accessible to more readers on the web. Read It Later now has nearly 4 million registered users, and I think there’s an incredible opportunity for publishers, curators and creators to use the platform in new and valuable ways. That will be my focus,” he said.

“We’re in a golden age of storytelling right now on the web, and I think Read It Later is in a perfect position to support that work, across all major platforms. We’re excited about what’s next.”

Mark (pictured) was the former director of content at Bundle. He noted that while this is a paid position with the company, he will continue running Longreads, supporting it through reader donations and subscriptions.

Read It Later completed a $2.5 million funding round in July, including investments from Foundation Capital, Baseline Ventures, Google Ventures, and Founder Collective. The service has just under 4 million registered users and over 250 apps connect to Read It Later for offline reading. The Android and iOS apps see about 10,000 downloads per day.

Mark and I started talking shortly after he launched Longreads. We would routinely have conversations about the space and our views on where it was headed. We never had an agenda or were working together at the time, but just enjoyed the thoughtful discussion. He just got it,” said Weiner.

“So this year, after I raised and grew from one to many, Mark and I talked again and realized it was the perfect time to bring him on board. Mark is now helping forge new paths with publishers, writers, and developers who are interested in changing the way people consume articles, videos, and content online and off.”

Luckily, even with all his responsibilities, Armstrong will still have a moment to peruse some long-form non-fiction.

“Longreads is continuing as it always has: It’s an independent four-person company, and my role with Read It Later will allow Longreads to expand and improve our service to the community. Read It Later has been a huge supporter of Longreads since the very beginning, and what we do is very complementary. Also, in case anyone’s wondering, I’ve always operated Longreads alongside other content strategy work — so, yes, I’ll still have plenty of time to read,” he said.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Read It Later, the popular service that lets you bookmark a webpage and access it later from any smartphone, computer, or tablet, has raised a $2.5 million funding round. The round marks the company’s first external funding, and includes investments from Foundation Capital (which led the round), Baseline Ventures, Google Ventures, Founder Collective, and several angel investors.

RIL founder Nathan Weiner originally started the company back in August 2007, and he was the only person working on it up until early this year — during which time he built out the web product, multiple mobile applications, and a userbase of millions. As the service took off Weiner moved out to Silicon Valley where he received multiple acquisition offers, but decided to keep the company independent. He’s also started growing the team, which is up to five.

Weiner wants RIL to “do for web content what Tivo did for TV content”, in the sense that it lets them consume what they want, when they want it. He says Read It Later also has a mission that similar to Drobox’s: it wants to give you access to that content on any of your devices, be it a phone, tablet, television, or computer, without having to think about where you saved what.

At this point Read It Later obviously has a focus on written content, but people have already started using it to bookmark other things — in fact, the number one most saved URL on Read It Later is YouTube.

Weiner says that the service currently has a total of 3.5 million registered users (though that includes users who aren’t active). And it’s showing strong growth, with 10,000 downloads per day and over 250 applications (including Twitter’s official app) that have integrated the RIL API. You can see a directory of these apps here.

Of course, Read It Later isn’t the only service that lets you sync bookmarks between devices.  Instapaper gets a lot of attention from the tech press (in part because it’s run by Tumblr’s former lead developer Marco Arment, and in part because it’s very well done). But Weiner says that Read It Later actually started before Instapaper and that its install base is around twice as large. He also points out that Instapaper caters primarily to users on iOS, whereas Read It Later offers official apps on more platforms (though Instapaper it does have an API, so there are non-official apps available for other platforms).

And then there’s Apple, which launched a feature called ‘Reading List’ in the latest version of Safari that includes a lot of the same functionality. Weiner isn’t concerned about this — he says that Apple users are siloed and that the number of RIL users who use both iOS and Safari make up less than 1% of RIL users.

Crunchbase

READ IT LATER

Company:
READ IT LATER

Website:
http://readitlater.com

Launch Date:
6/8/2007

Read It Later is a service that lets you save what you find on the web to watch and read on any device, anytime.

Founded in August 2007 by Nate…

Learn more

Article courtesy of TechCrunch