Have you considered making Metafilter available for the Kindle?

February 25, 2009 2:18 PM

Have you considered making Metafilter available for the Kindle?
posted by anastasiav to Feature Requests at 2:18 PM (37 comments total)

heh. I was asked to make it one of their blog subscriptions a year ago, but I thought it was for a Sony ebook reader (they didn't identify who wanted to sell it), and I turned it down.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 2:21 PM on February 25, 2009

I would love to get Metafilter on my Kindle! I vote yes! Wait, is this a democracy or a Matocracy? Oh, great Mathowie, I humbly ask that you reconsider your decision and allow Metafilter to become a blog subscription on Kindle.
posted by agatha_magatha at 2:39 PM on February 25, 2009

I wanted to add that my Kindle 2 is supposed to show up today from UPS, but I'll take another look at if after I've used it for a couple weeks. I thought it was kind of silly to charge a couple bucks a month for a free site, and I thought I heard you could browse the web freely on a kindle in "experimental" mode, but if it'd be easier to just get the front page or something via the kindle download service, I'll see what I can do.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 2:39 PM on February 25, 2009 [1 favorite]

Do you get a chunk of that $2? Then silly or not I'd consider it.

Let the subscribers decide if the $2 for content they can get elsewhere is worth it.

But this is coming from a guy who is Kindless and will probably remain so.
posted by cjorgensen at 2:53 PM on February 25, 2009

Me? No, I really don't have any say in it.
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 2:57 PM on February 25, 2009

Do it the old fashioned way like I do.
Every morning at 7.30am, my assistant runs a script which sends every unread blue, green and grey thread to the laser colour printer. He collates them, punches holes in them, and puts them in three folders, one for each subsite, each discrete thread kept separate with a numbered carboard divider. These are couriered to my house for reading in the car while I'm being driven to work. By the time I get into the office (via four laps of the pool, ten minutes in the sauna and a massage) at about 10.30am, I will have skim read the last day's worth of metafilter.
At that point it's definitely time for morning tea. Toast with blackberry jam and a nice big Calvados.
In red ink, I mark those posts and comments I wish to have favourited. In blue ink I indicate those comments I wish flagged, and I briefly note my reasons.
I dictate comments into cassettes with a tape recorder under my desk, which, when I am satisfied, I give to my assistant to send to the stenographer. I get on with other important tasks while the drafts are processed down there on level four. By the time they return, my assitant will have also made those favourites I earlier indicated.
Lunchtime. Champagne, a green salad and cold roast chicken, I think, today, before the fortnightly catchup meeting with Kevin and Penny.
Checking my comments for stenographic errors is a laborious task. Quite often I work solidly at it for forty minutes or even more, which gives me a sense of enormous self-worth and earnest industry in my afternoons. Corrected and/or approved for publishing, I return the drafts to the stenographers, and they give them back to my assistant for posting.
By the time I'm ready to leave work at four thirty, my assistant has run a second script issued me with a fourth folder containing all of your responses and the recent activity, together with a report of how many favourites my comments have been given, compared to monthly and quarterly trends. When I'm relaxing back at home in front of Neighbours with my triple measure of Talisker (one block of ice) this makes for a very satisfying read.
All of the paper is recycled, of course. We've all got to be committed to the environment these days.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 3:18 PM on February 25, 2009 [86 favorites]

And before you ask how Fiasco was able to process this thread and post that in under an hour, I'm the delegated assistant to the lazy fucker upstairs.
TAKE THIS JOB AND SHOVE IT
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 3:58 PM on February 25, 2009 [9 favorites]

In my next life I'm gonna be an influential blogger who gets cool free schwag like Kindles and Yahoo/Flickr/Electra Townies bikes....hey, why doesn't cortex get anything? Well, he did get that sweet biodegradable GMO-free coffee cup lid.
posted by fixedgear at 4:00 PM on February 25, 2009

Apparently you have to ever socialize in order to network. I dunno.
posted by cortex (staff) at 4:04 PM on February 25, 2009 [2 favorites]

The original Kindle and Kindle 2 do have browsers so yeah, you don't really need a subscription. And with the subscription you'd only be able to read it, not contribute. So yeah, for $2 you can buy a version of the same site but without all that annoying interactivity you've always hated about the original Metafilter.
posted by Toekneesan at 4:05 PM on February 25, 2009

My dog in this race is a paperback book.
posted by dunkadunc at 4:23 PM on February 25, 2009

dunkadunc, you want Metafilter on a paperback book? That's just crazy it might work--in the 22nd century. We clearly lack the technology for that today.
posted by skynxnex at 4:26 PM on February 25, 2009

But it has a keyboard - why build in a keyboard and allow you to browse websites if you can't interact with the internet?
posted by filthy light thief at 4:57 PM on February 25, 2009

oh sweet allah i can not WAIT for the kindle-equivalent that is rugged and flexible like a paperback book, except containing the entirety of every book ever in it.
posted by jtron at 5:00 PM on February 25, 2009 [1 favorite]

Is this something where we'd have to give out permission for another company to charge for access to stuff we created?
posted by Science! at 5:00 PM on February 25, 2009 [1 favorite]

Hypercolor!
posted by Science! at 5:10 PM on February 25, 2009 [2 favorites]

Wrong thread.
posted by Science! at 5:11 PM on February 25, 2009

Hypercolor is always in the right thread.
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:14 PM on February 25, 2009 [3 favorites]

Everyone's thinking is too future. Throw everyone for a loop and offer a clay tablet metafilter.
posted by ornate insect at 5:19 PM on February 25, 2009

Thanks, Science! and cortex?: I just learned what Hypercolor is (was!). Now I have to find a context to use "thermochromic".
posted by bru at 5:44 PM on February 25, 2009

I neglected to mention that not only would the subscription version of Metafilter not make sense because you couldn't contribute, it wouldn't make sense because in the subscription version you couldn't click on the links. And again it would be redundant because the device already comes with a browser and free internet almost everywhere. Though it may remind you of those modem days of your youth.
posted by Toekneesan at 6:02 PM on February 25, 2009

Ah, well then that is not so good is it? Thank you for enlightening me, Toekneesan--I am awaiting my Kindle2 and therefore was not aware of this limitation. Nevermind. Go about your business, nothing to see here.
posted by agatha_magatha at 6:48 PM on February 25, 2009

Good lord. What on earth would be the point, then?
posted by mediareport at 7:06 PM on February 25, 2009

I'm gonna be an influential blogger who gets cool free schwag like Kindles

That would be nice if they were actually doing that. I ponied up the $360-something for it.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 7:09 PM on February 25, 2009

Thermochromic!

Why wait, bru?
posted by deborah at 7:12 PM on February 25, 2009

a kindle is $360?
posted by boo_radley at 7:21 PM on February 25, 2009

I'd like a meta-Kindle blog subscription. and I'd pay for it. There's a big difference between browsing the web on the Kindle and having a blog subscription.

Love's me Kindle (1), love's me MetaFilter.
posted by matty at 7:39 PM on February 25, 2009

I have a Kindle, and there is a huge difference between reading a blog via paid subscription, and navigating to it on the "browser." The former is a far smoother experience. Yes, you are paying for something that's free, but Kindle's highest-selling subscription is the New York Times, which you can also get for free online. In both cases, though, setting aside issues of formatting and navigation, a subscription means that you download the whole thing (or at least the most recent "issue") to the device, and you can read it out of wireless range or without waiting for pages to reload.

The Kindle is very cool, but it is not a little laptop, and shouldn't be evaluated as if it is trying to be one, which it's not.
posted by bingo at 8:26 PM on February 25, 2009

My kindle 2 came yesterday (yay!) and I've tried out the browser. Last night it was really slow. Another vote for mefi as a download.

(I am so excited about my kindle you wouldn't believe it!!)
posted by Shebear at 4:52 AM on February 26, 2009

That would be nice if they were actually doing that. I ponied up the $360-something for it.

Ooops, my bad. Apologies, Matt. ASS/U/ME but mostly me.
posted by fixedgear at 5:07 AM on February 26, 2009

I found the page on Amazon where you can sign up for this, and just did. So I guess I'll post here if they approve/add it in the future.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 10:06 AM on February 26, 2009

For those of you new to Kindle, you might consider kndlefeeder.com which will take one or more RSS feeds and email them to the Kindle for you. It is free and I find it a convenient way to read blogs and the like -- I use it for the AskMe feed, but it isn't very useful for the blue, because the browser is lame.
posted by Lame_username at 10:47 AM on February 26, 2009

I would love this and would pay for it. I tried to access MeFi last night on my newly arrived Kindle 2 and as bingo notes, it was a crappy experience on an otherwise gorgeous, useful device.

a kindle is $360?

Yup. But while the purchase price might seem expensive, I realized that it's going to save me money in short order. As a dedicated NYT reader who travels a lot (and thus doesn't benefit from a home, dead-tree subscription) I realized that in a year, simply on the basis of a NYT Kindle subscription and saving money on the print edition, the cost of the Kindle is <$30.
posted by donovan at 11:31 AM on February 26, 2009

I've done a few reviews of/commentaries about the Kindle on my work blog. If you're bored and want to see what it's like to read a blog on the Kindle, a brief demonstration can bee seen here, at about 11:30.
posted by Toekneesan at 11:51 AM on February 26, 2009

I neglected to mention that not only would the subscription version of Metafilter not make sense because you couldn't contribute, it wouldn't make sense because in the subscription version you couldn't click on the links. And again it would be redundant because the device already comes with a browser and free internet almost everywhere. Though it may remind you of those modem days of your youth.

This is misinformation. You can embed URLs in books or other Kindle feeds and you can click on them and see them live and on the web browser. However, the browser is not exactly Chrome -- it will choke on frames and render lots of other pages in an unreadable format and is S-L-O-W. Some sites display fine, especially any that are tuned for mobile browsers.
posted by Lame_username at 11:54 AM on February 26, 2009

I just wanted to say that I don't know anything about their books but the mint cakes are definitely something to be experienced, especially the chocolate covered ones. If we could get those on MeFi I'd be pleased.
posted by Pollomacho at 12:26 PM on February 26, 2009 [1 favorite]

Yeah, but then you have to navigate back to the Mobi version of the blog when finished with the link, so why not just read the blog on the same browser you're reading the links on? You're right, though, they are clickable though only in that they open the browser and attempt to load the page. And while you wait for it to switch to browser mode, you can contemplate what else you might have done with that two dollars this month and what you might have done with an extra $24 this year. The sole advantage that Amazon claims for subscriptions is you can then read it off line. But you can't really if you want to use those links or comment.
posted by Toekneesan at 12:28 PM on February 26, 2009