✌ Reading

Safari and Firefox Browser Extensions

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 09:12:36 -0400

I’m pleased to announce that we now have native browser extensions for Safari and Firefox to compliment the Chrome extension we’ve had for a bit. Grab your preferred poison:

And, for posterity, you can always find them under Settings > Extras.

Why use an extension when you already have the bookmarklet, you ask? We have a brand new feature coming up that depends on an extension and trust me when I say it’ll be worth two clicks and a confirmation dialog.

Enjoy, and thanks for Reading.

Reading: not just for everything except Tumblr anymore

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 16:48:22 -0400

That’s right, in honor of Saint Patrick’s Day we now have a Tumblr hook for all your posting goodness. Find it under Settings > Hooks. And make sure to reading something green, lest you get pinched by the Reading hand.

Reading ❤ Readability

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 08:24:07 -0400

Another hook has been added by user request (thanks Casey!) - Readability. As usual, find it under Settings > Hooks. If you’re not familiar with Readability, do yourself a favor and give their new iPhone app a try. Readability is a great product from a great team, especially the lovely Max Fenton who’s been a Reading supporter from day one. Their content API powers the excerpts you see on Reading as well as our full-text search and their commitment to usability, not only for end users but for developers as well, is admirable.

We've got our hooks into Pinboard

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 09:12:17 -0400

By member request, I’ve added a hook for all you Pinboard.in users out there; find it under Settings > Hooks. And if you’d like to thank someone, thank Andi for writing a kind request email.

It's Time for Facebook Timeline

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 19:18:00 -0500

A while back I added an experimental Facebook Timeline hook to Reading and, since then, we’ve been waiting for approval from Facebook before making it generally available. (These things have to be approved, did you know that?) Well, I’m happy to announce that the wait is over and you can now add the Timeline hook to your account by logging into Reading and visiting Settings > Hooks where you’ll see the following:

Once added, each of your Reading posts will also be added to your Facebook Timeline where they’ll get grouped together into a nifty little time-box, like this:

Enjoy and thanks for reading!

Give me an I! Give me an nstapaper! What do you have?

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 10:00:00 -0500

Instapaper support has been added to Reading. No joke! To flex those “Read Later” muscles, simply log into your Reading.am account and visit Settings > Hooks where you’ll see Instapaper as a drop-down option next to “please post to”. Create a new hook and it’ll add every new Reading post to Instapaper. Automatically. For free. You guys are kind of spoiled.

Thanks for Reading!

*footnote: Instapaper’s hearts / stars / likes aren’t yet supported but let me know if they’re something you’re interested in and I’ll see what I can do.

Better Be Better Look'n

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 12:43:00 -0500

Because it’s Valentine’s day and because I love you, I’ve gotten a facelift (aka redesign). Enjoy! reading.am

Facebook Hooks and SSL / HTTPS

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 12:04:05 -0500

A few new features to ring in February:

Facebook Hooks

I’m happy to announce that Reading now supports the oft requested ability to post to your Facebook wall through a brand new hook. You can even post to three or twelve or however many different Facebook walls you like, depending on your whimsy. (You did know Reading supports connecting multiple Twitter and Facebook accounts, didn’t you?). Find it under your Settings > Hooks page.

SSL / HTTPS

The next time you click your bookmarklet, you’ll see the simple-as-pie upgrade prompt. Follow the instructions and within seconds your Reading posts will now be served over HTTPS. Okay, sure, but what does that mean for you? It means you’ll no longer get an “insecure content” warning when posting to Reading from Twitter or Google or a slew of other responsible sites looking out for the security of your/their packets.

Chrome extension users should also look for a similar upgrade under Window > Extensions > Update extensions now. If you’re not already using the extension, you can grab it here: super alright extension location.

Well, that’s it for now. I hope you enjoy the updates and, as always, thanks for Reading.

Chrome Extension Goodness

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 10:00:05 -0500

Oh my, Reading now has a native Chrome Extension.

Highlights include:

A nice big button in your browser bar. One click and pow - puh posted.
Context menu support. Right click on any link or image (that’s right, images!) and you can post those straight to Reading. This is especially handy for posting specific permalinks on blogs like Daring Fireball. (Thanks for the feature request, user Jon)

Obligatory screenshot!

You can download the extension here and, as always, thanks for Reading!

What Would Love Be Without Apologies?

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 02:07:00 -0500

It was recently brought to our attention that the new bookmarklet was inadvertently marking - at will and without much discretion - posts as “nope”. We’ve since fixed the problem but, regardless, it’s worth saying sorry.

While we’re at it, a note about “yep/nope”: did you know that you can remove an accidental “yep” or “nope” by clicking the same “yep” or “nope” a second time? It’s true. Unfortunately there’s not an easy way to retroactively remove all of the incorrect nope’s from today’s bookmarklet bug but if you’re heartbroken, well, email us and we’ll see what we can do.

I love you,
Reading

All I Want For Christmas Is A New Bookmarklet That Mostly Looks The Same But Is More Reliable

Sun, 25 Dec 2011 19:56:38 -0500

The next time you use your Reading bookmarklet, you’ll notice a message prompting you to upgrade it. Like this:

The message is fairly self explanatory but everyone loves an enumerated list, especially one that leads to happiness, so here’s what you’ll need to do:

Click your existing Reading bookmarklet to bring up the message pictured above.
From the message, click and drag the big white link to your bookmarks bar to install the new bookmarklet.
Delete your old Reading bookmarklet.
Refresh the page you were trying to Read.
Click the new bookmarklet.
Everything should now post to Reading as usual.
Happiness.

Hopefully you’ll find the new bookmarklet to be a bit more reliable, especially on sites it would previously break, like Grooveshark. Happy Holidays and thanks for Reading!

Now with more search

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 08:53:57 -0500

Or, rather, now with search.

By popular request, Read It Later is now available in Stuff. And...

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 00:02:02 -0500

By popular request, Read It Later is now available in Stuff. And we’re taking requests for additional services so feel free to send us ideas via the email in our footer. Or Christmas cookies.

Stuff Hooks Other Readers

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 12:29:00 -0500

It’s been a busy few weeks here at Reading, so let’s hop to it starting with the smaller bits and working our way down. Ready? Ready.

Profile URL

Your Reading profile URL (ex: http://reading.am/sameerg) now defaults to your own posts rather than your Reading list (the posts of the people you follow).

Pagination

Believe it or not, it used to be impossible to browse through older posts on Reading. But now you’ll find links to continue Reading at the bottom of each page. They look like this:

Export

You can now download all of the pages you’ve Read, since the beginning of time, into a “tab separated CSV”. That’s fancy talk for “a spreadsheet”. Find the download link under Settings > Information and in the footer of You > Posts.

Hooks

Hooks (under Settings > Hooks) have been reworked. You can now tie a Hook to a specific action (ex: “yep” or “nope”) and, by popular demand, we’ve added a Twitter Hook for automatically tweeting what you Read.

Stuff

In addition to tweeting from a Hook, we’ve added a “Stuff” menu in the Reading bookmarklet for easily posting to Twitter, Facebook, Instapaper, and Readability. It looks like this:

Other Readers

What could be more exciting than Stuff? Pish. Have we got an understated feature for you - “Other Readers”. When you Read a page using the bookmarklet, you’ll now see a list of all the other Readers who have come before you. Maybe you’ll find a new friend who likes Reading just as much as you do. It’ll show up automatically if any other Readers exist and when it does it’ll look like this:

Shorten ing.am

And last but not least, we have a new short url: ing.am. Look for it in tweets and other social media all across the internet.

That’s it for now. Thanks for all your feedback and, of course, thanks for Reading.

Facebook Timeline Support

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 08:22:37 -0400

We’re testing out Reading support for the new Facebook Timeline. If you’re interested in getting early access and helping us work out the kinks, shoot us an email. hello(at)reading.am

Marisa likes cats; Jud and I just didn’t have the stomach.

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 18:14:46 -0400

Marisa likes cats; Jud and I just didn’t have the stomach.

The unpossible page

Sat, 15 Oct 2011 09:14:00 -0400

Reading now has its very own 404 page, a page that tells the epic story of a raincloud and a thunderstorm and one man’s search for optimism in the circle of life. No, really, go check it out:

http://reading.am/404.html

Yep Nope

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 04:48:00 -0400

Good morning Readers - we’re pleased to announce a new feature entitled “Yep Nope”. Here’s what it looks like after you use your bookmarklet to read a page:

And here’s what the results look like in your Reading List:

It’s optional - a single click of the bookmarklet still posts to Reading - and what it means beyond that is up to you. In the mean time, rest assured that we’re working hard to give you better access to your backlog of Reads and “Yep Nope” will become a part of that.

Let us know what you think and, as always, thanks for good being Readers.

A Nearly Native Mac App - AKA Fluid Support

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 20:11:00 -0400

For our savvy Mac users, we’re pleased to announce Fluid support. If you’re not familiar with Fluid, it “lets you create a Real Mac App out of any website or web application, effectively turning your favorite web apps into OS X desktop apps.” Exciting, right? So here’s what you’ll get:

Realtime updates from your feed
Growl notifications
Dock badges (you know, that little red thing on the app icon)

Here’s how to create your very own Reading app:

Download Fluid at fluidapp.com (it’s free).
Note - if you already have Fluid, make sure it’s at the latest version, v1.2.
Double click on Fluid to create a new app and add the following settings:
- URL: reading.am
- Name: Reading
- Location: Applications
- Icon: Click here to download the icon
Launch your new Reading app and go to Reading > Preferences > Whitelist
- Select “Allow browsing to URLs matching these patterns”
- Enter these as your patterns:
  *reading.am*
  *api.twitter.com/oauth*
Resize the main Reading window to roughly 400px by 650px
Enjoy!

The app will send live updates for whatever Reading List you’re currently viewing and display Growl notifications when the app is in the background. We’ve recently been enjoying the “Everybody” feed (linked in the header) so you might give that a look see.

It’s a barebones step onto the desktop but we’re pretty excited about it. We hope you enjoy it too and, as always, feedback is welcomed.

RSS Support

Mon, 05 Sep 2011 13:00:43 -0400

It’s Labor Day Weekend and, in keeping with tradition, we’ve just released RSS support for Reading. That’s a tradition, right? Right. So what’s so great about RSS support you ask, hamburger in hand? Well, let’s start by clarifying that RSS support is only available to logged in users. Once you’re logged in, you’ll see a link in the footer like so:

(Note: your hand may vary.)

Plug that link into your favorite RSS reader and you’ll get a list of Reading posts. Here’s my feed in Reeder for Mac:

And here’s the same feed in Reeder for iPhone:

The Reading RSS feeds add a bit of special sauce that will auto-update your reading list when you visit a link, just like the links on reading.am. Fear not, though, simply clicking on an RSS item won’t add it to your reading list, we won’t do that until you actually visit the linked article.

We hope you enjoy a steady diet of Reading RSS and BBQ this weekend and let us know what you think.

——————————

P.S. An extra special note as well as a point of frustration: if you’re using an RSS client that syncs through Google Reader (such as the aforementioned Reeder) your feed will, more than likely, only update once every few hours. This is a consequence of Google’s implementation and, at this time, there only seems to be two less-than-ideal ways around it. 1 - use a client that doesn’t rely on Google Reader for updates, for instance NetNewsWire. Or 2 - if you’re a user of the Google Reader web interface, click on your feed and manually update to force a refresh (see the screenshot below).