This is what Pocket now claims was the first read-later service. There was no web service, no sync, and no support for other browsers - just a special bookmarks list stored locally in Firefox. It was just a Firefox extension with two buttons, read later and reading list, that behaved like a bookmarks folder. The first public mentions I can find of Read It Later are in November 2007. Whether this is true depends on how you define that. Later in the episode, he made the same claim a second time: Read It Later was the first service in this category. Steve: … “It’s worth noting that Read It Later and Pocket, we were the, kind of, first people to develop a save-for-later service, and that term, ‘read it later’, had kind of been adopted by other companies who are building these kind of similar products.” … Mike: “What sets Pocket apart from other services like Instapaper or Readability?” Weiner has commented numerous times in the press that Read It Later was the first read-later service, and that it predated Instapaper by being started in 2007. Steve’s the lead developer at Instapaper’s biggest competitor, Pocket, founded by Nate Weiner and formerly named Read It Later.

Steve Streza was this week’s guest on CMD+SPACE. I’m nervous to post this, but my readers and customers were very appreciative that I clarified the Readability story after some incorrect assumptions in the press, so I’ll take the chance one more time. A programmer, writer, podcaster, geek, and coffee enthusiast.

Readlater instapaper pocket