Unified Communications: Instapaper Updates App, Website to Be More Social

Thriving startup Instapaper just rolled out a massive update to its eponymous mobile app and Web bookmarking service to make them more social.

Instapaper is a highly popular website service and iOS-optimized application that enables users to save Web articles in a queue and access them later, even when they are offline. The offering achieved near-immediate success, especially among iPhone (News - Alert) and iPad owners, allowing founder Marco Arment to move on from his role as CTO of Tumblr to focus his attention on improving the service.

The most recent iteration of the app, Instapaper 3.0, is all about social features and sharing options. Users can now share their favorite articles with friends via Facebook (News - Alert), Twitter, Tumblr, Pinboard and Evernote with just one click of the "like" button.

In addition, users can now browse through their friends "liked" items to find interesting Web content that they might have missed. To link up with friends who are also on Instapaper, all you need to do is find them through one of your social networking accounts, or by importing your contacts list. If that doesn't work, you can simply type in their email address.

The third big update to Instapaper is a new in-app browser that is said to make searching for content much easier. This addition also includes an Editors Picks section that features "the best human curators on the Web," who offer up their recommendations on must-read articles.

Finally, Instapaper 3.0 has phased out the RSS-folder feature, which Arment said was rarely ever used but slowed down the app considerably.

"This results in much faster updates and downloads, far less space usage on your iPhone and iPad, and much less bandwidth usage over your 3G connections," he noted in a company blog post.

Instapaper 3.0 is a free upgrade for users who already own the app. New customers will have to fork over $4.99 for the universal iPad and iPhone version. Click here to download the app.

Beecher Tuttle is a TMCnet contributor. He has extensive experience writing and editing for print publications and online news websites. He has specialized in a variety of industries, including health care technology, politics and education. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Tammy Wolf