If your following me on Twitter… you know that I post a lot of things that I read. And those post come out what seems like 24/7. You may have also noticed that I do not use any kind of service to post my tweets later – everything is real time. This is possible via my iPhone with a couple apps that are not ‘Twitter’ apps.
When you go to the iTunes app store, you find a LOT of iPhone apps that are for managing your posts and follows on Twitter. While most will do URL shortening, that doesn’t help you get a long address typed in.
Throughout my day, I keep up on a large group of informational Web sites. I like the version of Safari loaded on the iPhone but for get in, find the latest, and get out… or share, it is on the slow side. We don’t always want the full internet.
Enter Feeds and ReadItLater. I have mentioned Feeds before. It pulls down your favorite RSS feeds so you can read articles offline (particularly for me being a freq traveler of planes and elevators). When offline, it is text and when online it will pull in any images linked within the article.
Many times I find a article I think others might find enlightening. This used to mean I had to ’email’ the article to my desktop to then share the next time my notebook, Twitter, the Internet and I were all in the same place and time. Now, Feeds has added to their Feed Actions button the option to push the article out to your Instapaper or ReadItLater service. I have long used Instapaper but ReadItLater has added ‘sharing’ so now it has become my default.
The ability to push a article from Feeds to my ReadItLater means that I can now read the full article without having to do it via Mobile Safari. The next time I launch ReadItLater, I sync and the article is available for a full end-to-end review. ReadItLater offers Online and Offline views as well as with/without graphics. Text only is my default since I’m usually reading on the go.
If an article appears to be something I want to share to my Twitter Followers, it is as simple as choosing the ‘share’ (seems so obvious). You are presented with several Social Networks to choose from.
Choosing ‘Twitter’ in my case, ReadItLater presents you with a box to enter your tweet text into, and two buttons for entering the article URL link full length or shortened. When you have used your 140 characters, tap the ‘Go’ button to post up for all to see on Twitter.
So… in review for those that read ahead to the end. If you enjoy keeping up to date and sharing with friends. Use Feeds to get the quick overview (RSS) of articles, push any articles you want to read full length to ReadItLater. When you have time, read the whole post in ReadItLater, use the ‘Share’ feature if you want to Tweet out to your Followers. Enjoy and help others enjoy anytime…
Instapaper and ReadItLater are available in a lite free version and Pro versions which carry a couple dollar charge.