With the recent introduction of Apple’s Reading List feature with Safari 5.1 and Monday’s announcement that the popular Pulse news reader is getting a bookmarklet and Chrome extension, the world has more options than just Instapaper and Read It Later -- but how much is too much?
TechCrunch is reporting that developers Alphonso Labs have introduced a two new companion features for their popular Pulse social news reader for iOS and Android which claims to have around five million active users. The company has introduced both a bookmarklet as well as a Chrome extension with the capability of saving web articles to the Pulse.me service launched earlier this year.
How does it work? You simply drag the Save To Pulse bookmarklet to your bookmark bar (or folder), then next time you stumble across a web page you want to save for later reading, simply click and it will be saved to Pulse.me -- accessible at anytime from either the Pulse app or also the web.
If the feature sounds familiar, it’s probably because you’re already familiar with Instapaper or Read It Later, two earlier apps that are popular with iOS users for presenting web pages in a clean, elegant manner when you don’t have time to read them at the moment. Of course, Apple recently introduced a similar “Reading List” feature with Safari 5.1, although that function doesn’t strip a web page of the clutter as Instapaper and Read It Later do (Apple relies on its own Reader feature for that).
Does the world need all of these methods for saving web pages? That depends on how and what you’re using. Since Pulse.me offers the ability to also push saved pages to Instapaper, Read Me Later and even Evernote, the developer might be vying to become your main tool for saving pages for later reading.
The new Save To Pulse bookmarklet is available now, or if you prefer, the Chrome extension is ready for your bookmarking pleasure as well.
(Thanks to Twitter user @sameritech for pointing out that we goofed on Read It Later, which has now been corrected.)
Follow this article’s author, J.R. Bookwalter on Twitter
