Let's follow each other on Pocket March 15, 2017 10:46 AM   Subscribe

Surely, there are many MeFites on Pocket. Their Friends function is the closest thing I've found to the social features on the dearly departed Google Reader Let's exchange usernames and become friends.

My profile is at this link.

If there's enough interest, perhaps we can add Pocket profiles to the Social page on the wiki.
posted by reenum to MetaFilter-Related at 10:46 AM (21 comments total) 4 users marked this as a favorite

What is Pocket?
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 11:37 AM on March 15, 2017 [2 favorites]


It's a read it later service that has added some social features to enable users to share articles and videos with each other.
posted by reenum at 11:41 AM on March 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


What is Pocket?
$20 SAIT

posted by Celsius1414 at 1:12 PM on March 15, 2017 [13 favorites]


I don't think there needs to be 'enough interest' to be added to the 'Also On' page. The only criteria I think is a publicly available user page. Just go ahead and add it to the Wiki here and prod the admins.
posted by Confess, Fletch at 1:57 PM on March 15, 2017


I've also never heard of Pocket but it looks neat. But when I got to "Save directly from your browser or from apps like Twitter, Flipboard, Pulse and Zite." I couldn't tell if I was being trolled. I know Twitter but the rest are all foreign to me.

I'd like an offline reader sometimes, but do any Pocket users here care to comment on how the rendering of pages works? Do images mostly get saved and do the pages jump around and redraw themselves when scrolling? I've tried a few apps in the past like this and I couldn't use them because I couldn't read a page without it jumping all over - at least on mobile.
posted by Clinging to the Wreckage at 1:57 PM on March 15, 2017


I love Pocket.

Clinging to the Wreckage, my experience is that most pages load with any embedded static images, and that there's almost no jumping around while scrolling. For example, I just checked a couple long-form articles I have saved, all of them from Vox, Buzzfeed, or Esquire, and they all have the full text and all related images and load completely (no redrawing) when they're opened. Some pages that have those click to see more cuts render incompletely--Cracked articles are especially bad for this, and if it's a five-part list, I might get items 1, 2, and 5, for example. That said, probably 95% of the things that I save work fine. I read almost exclusively through the Pocket app on my (Android) phone, and would definitely rec trying it--it's the only offline reading app that I've tried and not hated, let alone liked.
posted by mishafletch at 3:31 AM on March 16, 2017


www.theoldreader.com is a pretty great replacement for google reader, too.
posted by Grither at 8:59 AM on March 16, 2017 [1 favorite]


I, too, have tried to use Pocket because i loathe how the iphone reloads windows when I simply click back into them -- and when I'm underground, OH WELL can't read it anymore! -- but I had issues when trying to 'save' a page to Pocket. It wouldn't appear sometimes, and sometimes I had to open Pocket again and say, "Yes, please save that page in there." Is this an issue anyone else has?

If I can actually understand how to operate it well, would love to do the social thing on there.
posted by knownassociate at 10:28 AM on March 16, 2017


What are you using to add pages to pocket? The bookmarklet, browser extension, or the app/share feature on your phone?

My account is @sagc, for the record.
posted by sagc at 10:33 AM on March 16, 2017


NewsBlur still holding up, I think!
posted by anotherpanacea at 11:17 AM on March 16, 2017 [2 favorites]


It sounds like reenum is mentioning this not for the feed-reader-like aspects, but for the "recommended" profile that you can generate from your liked articles - are The Old Reader and Newsblur related to that side of things?
posted by sagc at 11:38 AM on March 16, 2017 [1 favorite]


I'm one of those guys who adds a bunch of things to Pocket with full intention of reading them later and then never gets around to reading them later. So I don't really post new recommendations that often. But, regardless, here's my profile.

It'd be pretty cool if our official MeFi profiles got support for Pocket, too.
posted by tobascodagama at 11:55 AM on March 16, 2017


I use The Older Reeder by way of Reeder app on Mac. Like it.
posted by terrapin at 12:32 PM on March 16, 2017


I'm one of those guys who adds a bunch of things to Pocket with full intention of reading them later and then never gets around to reading them later.

I do this too except I don't even pretend to myself I'm going to read them later. Pocket is basically just the excuse I tell myself for closing things instead of reading them.
posted by grobstein at 5:35 PM on March 16, 2017 [4 favorites]


(Went ahead and added Pocket to the list of suggested sites on SocialStuffs.)
posted by Going To Maine at 6:51 PM on March 16, 2017 [1 favorite]


I'm one of those guys who adds a bunch of things to Pocket with full intention of reading them later and then never gets around to reading them later.

I just leave the tabs open until I get tired of looking at them or give in and read them. I have MF tabs open right now that are from last summer.
posted by bongo_x at 10:41 PM on March 16, 2017 [2 favorites]


I am soelo8 on Pocket. I'm not that active, but I do use it.
posted by soelo at 5:46 AM on March 17, 2017


It sounds like reenum is mentioning this not for the feed-reader-like aspects, but for the "recommended" profile that you can generate from your liked articles - are The Old Reader and Newsblur related to that side of things?

NewBlur has something called the "BlurBlog," which is made up of stories you share. I don't have any connections NewsBlur so I don't actually share things.
posted by anotherpanacea at 7:07 AM on March 17, 2017


I am on pocket - can't use it for mefi though. Whenever I try to save a thread (using browser bookmark/plugin) for later only the title and opening text get saves, none of the contents ever show up :(
posted by Faintdreams at 2:06 PM on March 17, 2017


Love pocket as I can save from any device and later read from any device. So if i take a break at work and read the blue and a link catches my eye I save and can read later on my phone. The recent political threads have thrown up a lot of interesting articles. Also I have several fb friends who post interesting articles which I can save until later because I am at that point more interested in their cats or the daily fb crap.
posted by adamvasco at 6:03 PM on March 17, 2017


I have the same problem as Faintdreams - mefi only shows title and opening text, no comments. Is this a bug or a feature? It'd be quite useful to have Mefi on Pocket!
posted by gakiko at 5:34 AM on March 24, 2017


« Older Thanks to kitteh and to Metafilter   |   Happy St. Patrick's Day! Newer »

You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments