Ask HN: Review my web application

http://www.markitforlater.com

by tannerburson • 18 years ago

17 36 18 years ago

tannerburson14• 18 years ago

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!

speby• 18 years ago

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.

tannerburson14• 18 years ago

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!

inimino• 18 years ago

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

Edit: I like the design.

tannerburson14• 18 years ago

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.

pedalpete• 18 years ago

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.

tannerburson14• 18 years ago

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!

tlrobinson• 18 years ago

How's this different/better than Instapaper?

unalone• 18 years ago

This is the important one. Instapaper offers an RSS feed and a top-notch iPhone app, too.

tannerburson14• 18 years ago

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• 18 years ago

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?"

tannerburson14• 18 years ago

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...

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

slice• 18 years ago

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

tannerburson14• 18 years ago

Nice catch, thanks!

yeabuddy2• 18 years ago

how is this any different than delicious?

tannerburson14• 18 years ago

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).

yeabuddy2• 18 years ago

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 :-/.

trevorturk• 18 years ago

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

tannerburson14• 18 years ago

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

PStamatiou2• 18 years ago

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

tocomment• 18 years ago

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

PStamatiou2• 18 years ago

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

paul9290• 18 years ago

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• 18 years ago

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?

tannerburson14• 18 years ago

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.

pclark5• 18 years ago

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.

pclark5• 18 years ago

oh and EXTRA MASSIVE KUDOS for not requiring an email.

tannerburson14• 18 years ago

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!

pclark5• 18 years ago

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

jgrahamc• 18 years ago

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

Ask HN: Review my web application

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