Readability service to become free

http://blog.readability.com/2011/11/reading-needs-a-platform-introducing-the-new-readability/

by andycroll • 15 years ago

154 61 15 years ago

blog.readability.com

andycroll• 15 years ago

Looks like a movement toward being a direct competitor to Instapaper.

mootymoots• 15 years ago

... and a response to Apple's move into this space

willhopkins• 15 years ago

Marco doesn't seem to think Apple's service will challenge his business model for Instapaper much. Do you think Readability feels differently?

grayrest2• 15 years ago

Kind of surprising to me since the arc90 team worked with Marco for the original platform effort.

priteau• 15 years ago

Unless it changed recently, Marco Arment, the creator of Instapaper, is an advisor to Arc90, the company behind Readability (http://www.marco.org/2011/02/01/readabilitys-new-service)

DTSmith• 15 years ago

Marco is not currently listed in the advisor team at the bottom of their about page (https://www.readability.com/about). Would seem like a conflict at this point and makes sense for them to move in separate directions.

imajes2• 15 years ago

Doesn't seem incredibly surprising; Marco isn't really innovating effectively, and it's time to see the space build via competition.

wmeredith• 15 years ago

I beg to differ. Instapaper 3.0 was an amazing step forward for the software.

nc3• 15 years ago

This is better than Instapaper.

w1ntermute• 15 years ago

Definitely, NTM Marco's childish anti-Android bias is just stupid. Like it or not, Android has the largest chunk of the smartphone market, and not supporting it out of an ideological bias is absurd.

For related reasons, it appears that the Readability app has only been released on iOS at the moment. I have no idea why on earth you would do this, but whatever. As long as they eventually release an Android app, the problem will be solved.

avolcano• 15 years ago

There is no "anti-Android bias." Marco is one man, and does not want to make and support an Android app in addition to making a web app, iOS app, and the backend to support the two.

There is also not a good profit motive for him. Android users, on average, not only use fewer apps, but especially buy fewer apps - very few paid apps on Android are as successful as iOS counterparts.

As for Readability, I use the excellent mobile web app. I will check out the iOS app, I suppose, but for Android phones the web app should be fine.

tptacek2• 15 years ago

... in the sense that...

nc3• 15 years ago

Similar service that supports more platforms at a lower price (free).

pfui• 15 years ago

would be nice if they provided readability as a library or a documented API for third-parties.

inportb• 15 years ago

it is indeed available as a library. with multiple ports, no less.

kenneth_reitz7• 15 years ago

We do!

http://www.readability.com/publishers/api

We also offer a Content API for getting the content of articles. Send us an email for more info.

wslh• 15 years ago

Is the API now free?

arpit• 15 years ago

Free service and free apps? Whats the business model?

berberich• 15 years ago

I'm wondering the same thing. Their original business model of splitting revenue with the authors was interesting, but I'm guessing they didn't get many subsribers.

I was interested in supporting them, but because I already support Marco @ Instapaper with a monthly donation, the Readability subscription (was it $5 or $7 per month) wasn't worth it for myself.

stdbrouw2• 15 years ago

It's still their business model, they've had a free version and a premium version (w/ the revenue split) for quite a while now, and it doesn't seem like this announcement changes that. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the big change is that the apps are now free too, or maybe that some premium features have become available to everyone.

achompas2• 15 years ago

Freemium. See the home page, where they talk about "Premium" subscribers.

gizzlon2• 15 years ago

I like readability and their idea that profit should go back to the publisher. But they never really tell you how this is suppose to work. As far as I can tell, each publisher has to register with readability to see any money. Clearly not "web scale" :)

stdbrouw2• 15 years ago

Actually, most bigger publishers and quite a few bloggers are already signed up with Readability, because it's just set-and-forget.

Also: "Yes, Readability keeps track of the last twelve months of pages visited even before a publisher registers with us to view their statistics. If your site has garnered traffic to Readability, we're already earmarking money for you."

gizzlon2• 15 years ago

Cool, but how do you know who signed up?

bproper2• 15 years ago

Ironically, the parser developed by Readability under the Apache license is now used by Apple and Amazon. So the technology has gone web scale, even if the business hasn't...

http://www.betabeat.com/2011/11/16/readability-focuses-on-fr...

abrowne2• 15 years ago

I keep bouncing between Readability and Readable[1].

One thing I like about Readability is that it's not affected by saved zoom levels because it displays the converted page on its own domain. For example, if I have BBC News at 120% zoom – remembered by Chrome – Readability is still at 100% – or whatever I've set it to – whereas Readable uses 120% zoom.

[1] http://readable.tastefulwords.com/

gala8y• 15 years ago

I've been using Readability legacy bookmarklet, but was never happy being redirected to their domain. Thanks for link to Readable.

abrowne2• 15 years ago

On Chrome there's also the Readability Redux extension[1], which uses the old bookmarklet's code with a toolbar button.

[1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/jggheggpdocamneaac...

tel2• 15 years ago

I can't consider leaving Instapaper until Readability sends things to my Kindle weekly. Without that feature I'm unlikely to bookmark in Readability but quite likely to using Instapaper. I don't see how it can be done with the paywall they've set up, though.

kenneth_reitz7• 15 years ago

We can send things to your Kindle daily.

tel2• 15 years ago

Indeed you can :) Anecdotally, I didn't notice that capacity until you mentioned it here, though.

Torn• 15 years ago

For a site named 'readability', the font they're using seems awfully thin and spidery. I need to selecting the text to comfortably read it, and my eyesight isn't bad.

Is it just me, or are anti-aliased web fonts these days harder to read than their normal equivalents?

bproper2• 15 years ago

Unlike Marco Arment and Instapaper, Readability will now give their app away for free.

Founding partner Rich Ziade says the company is still "figuring out" their business model.

But the parser Readability created under the Apache license is being used by Apple and Amazon in millions of devices, neither of which pays a dime in licensing fees to this small startup.

He talks about it here - http://www.betabeat.com/2011/11/16/readability-focuses-on-fr...

Readabilities dream of a long form "slow" web that rewards publishers is noble, but they would be better equipped to build it if they had secured their business model early on.

naner• 15 years ago

Founding partner Rich Ziade says the company is still "figuring out" their business model.

That sounds ominous.

But the parser Readability created under the Apache license is being used by Apple and Amazon in millions of devices, neither of which pays a dime in licensing fees to this small startup.

Yup. That is what the Apache license is for. I'm a huge fan of open source but when you choose a license like that you should prepare yourself for the possibility that most people will use your code in the most unhelpful and exploitative way possible.

I'm using something called "Enjoy Reading" for Firefox (which also uses readability's code) since I'd rather have the formatting all happen in javascript without trying to access a remote server. It's quicker and I don't have to worry about whether or not they are logging every article I read.

kenneth_reitz7• 15 years ago

The parser we're using now is not based on that JavaScript codebase at all. It's excellent to it being used in so many ways now, though.

We're all about making reading better on the web.

hyperbovine• 15 years ago

> But the parser Readability created under the Apache license is being used by Apple and Amazon in millions of devices, neither of which pays a dime in licensing fees to this small startup.

Presumably it attained that level of awesomeness due to the efforts of volunteers who donated their time to open source. That's the model -- no fair complaining a posteriori when your app blows up and people start making more money with it than you are. It was never "yours" to begin with.

(Not that Arc90 is doing this; in fact they seem to be going out of their way not to.)

sjs• 15 years ago

I already have and use Instapaper. What reasons are there to start using Readability instead?

level09• 15 years ago

Apple is already killing these 3rd party services (readability,instapaper etc ..) they have a readability button in their latest safari for ios5 alongside with a reading list. hence the decision the make it free ..

iMessage was another attempt to kill whats app, I won't be surprised if instagram is next.

kenneth_reitz7• 15 years ago

Not at all.

Apple's service is useful, but it's only an aggregated list of your own links to read. Open one on iOS, and it opens the full webpage. Far from ideal.

It's excellent to see them contributing to online reading, though. The 'Reader' Safari feature is based on our code, actually! (we're in the license page).

Raphael• 15 years ago

Plenty of people who don't use Safari.

mitjak• 15 years ago

There is no way to view your links outside of the Apple's browsers, it automatically archives links you click on even once, even if just to peak, and it's entirely locked to the Mac and iOS devices. For the target audience the feature was designed for (clearly not my mom), it falls short in many ways. I don't think anything's killing anything quite yet.

lowglow• 15 years ago

I developed this exact same tech earlier this year. It was a pain trying to analyze all the MANY different ways people can screw up html, but the success rate is pretty high across the net. I've been thinking of making it opensource since I no longer use it.

donohoe• 15 years ago

Please do.

kleiba• 15 years ago

I wish there was a browser plugin that makes every web page appear as if run through Readability/Readable by default. Of course, it would be nice if it was really snappy, too.

andrewfelix• 15 years ago

Much of web would be so much more pleasant if article based sites were formatted from the get go like they are in Readability. I would gladly put up with one or two ads and they would more likely get my attention.

Readability service to become free

Related Stories