![]() ![]() “I wouldn’t put Instapaper in just anyone’s hands,” he says, “and I know that they’ll do right by it.” But he says that it really needs a full-time staff to continue growing, and that’s not something that he thinks he’d be very good at.Īrment specifically says that he looked for a company that wouldn’t just shut it down in six months. Arment developed the app by himself and launched it in 2008 as a web app and later an iOS app. The service has apps for iOS, Android and a web interface. ![]() Instapaper, if you’re unfamiliar, is a service that allows you to grab the contents of a page to read them later in a pleasantly reformatted manner. Now, I’m confident that I’m doing the best thing for Instapaper and its customers, and I feel great about that.” But for about 6 months, I’ve felt guilty with this burden of Instapaper’s continued development and maintenance that I’ve been handling pretty poorly. “I really haven’t emotionally processed it fully yet, I’m sure. We asked Arment how it felt to be letting his baby go, the first product after his exit from Tumblr and his almost universal calling card for years. “I’ve been having a lot of trouble just keeping the product fresh, functional, and up-to-date for my existing customers.”Īrment says that he will continue advising the project indefinitely, but that Betaworks will take over its operations and development. “The deal had a lot more to do with Instapaper itself than the competition, honestly,” Arment told us. We asked Arment about whether the competition from other services like Readability and cross-platform Pocket had anything to do with the sale. Arment says that the deal has been structured with “Instapaper’s health and longevity as the top priority, with incentives to keep it going well into the future.” This is basically an acquisition, and they will be running the service and taking over development of the apps. Arment says that the deal is something that he’s been pondering for some time, as the app has grown. Since Arment now has time to think about things like business models and expanding the software, he might consider making his baby the backbone of a micro-payments network.Today, Instapaper creator Marco Arment announced on his blog that he has sold a majority stake of the app to development house and accelerator Betaworks. The free one is more than adequate for most users and it has become enough of a standard that it is surprising Arment hasn't charged everybody a buck or two just to have the convenience. Instapaper comes in a free and paid version. ![]() Arment hasn't even maximized the revenue potential of that side project either. "The only change for Instapaper is that I'll now have more time to spend on it," Arment tells TechCrunch, " So far been a side project that I'd throw a few hours at every once in a while."Īmazing. Constantly improving the product and increasing the customer base have always been primary goals." "It's always been a business, it has been profitable every month for the last two years. The real question about Instapaper isn't whether it disrupts someone else's business model, but whether it has one of its own: Most see the potential for higher reader engagement, loyalty, and retention rates, and in nearly every case, the people I speak with are happy Instapaper users themselves." I accommodate any publishers' wishes who would rather not have their content accessible in Instapaper, but to date, almost no publishers have chosen that option. "I've worked with many large and small publishers, and nearly all of them love the value that Instapaper provides to their readers. Here's Arment's answering Alexia Tsotsis's questions: Techcrunch wonders how publishers feel about Instapaper hijacking eyeballs away from their precious ads: ![]()
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