Tuesday 4 September 2012

Review: Pocket App - real cool stuff

Pocket apps is great for busy people who need to accumulate a reading list of articles from the internet, own multiple platform devices (smartphone, tablets).

This app supports iOS, Android, and BlackBerry OS operating systems and for multiple computer browsers and operating systems.

Pocket holds a comfortable lead in the genre of bookmark /organiser  apps – the market share numbers is telling –Pocket has 5 million users while the next nearest competitor,  Instapaper, has 1 million users.
Judging from users’ number alone, there is great demand for personal organiser for internet readers who are flooded by the deluge of web articles.  I am certainly one of the lost sheep in the ocean of information over the internet.

Key functional features that made Pocket app a must-have include:

1.       Tag it, Read it later, and Retrieval ease

a.       For time starved knowledge workers and students, who spend hours on the internet stumbling across interesting articles, there is no risk of lost urls or articles, with it’s simple tagging function

b.      Retrieval of articles and video is simple, it has video support too.

c.       Handy pop up of articles, easy read to read as users can customise reading (nite read vs day read).

                                                               i.      However, one missing feature is the lack of pagination feature which would be great when reading lengthy article.

The ‘read it later’ and ease of retrieval makes this apps great for increasing personal productivity - no more lost urls or articles. Memorable slogan: Space Shifting, Time Shifting!

2.       Easy access: Categorised, organised

a.       Store and sort by categories using labels that users can understand

b.      Store and sort by media mode: text articles, videos, images

c.       Can sort by tag, article length, url

As a leading personal organiser app developer, the intuitive manner of classifying and tagging makes it a natural choice for the busy people with little time for learning user interface (short learning curve).
 
3.       Social sharing options

a.       As plug-in, Pocket allows app user to share copy via Twitter, Google Reader, Facebook, etc.

b.      Now, like-minded readers (or students) can form user groups to swop and share each other’s articles, videos, tags and urls.

The fact that Pocket has leverage social media users, such as Twitters and Facebook, means that we can swop and share articles, videos and while promoting communication and productive bonding. 

 Pocket is really cool stuff! Why didn’t I think of this idea?!!  Damn.

5 comments:

  1. Good idea + good execution! There are still many chances waiting for us:)

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  2. Hey, if you are looking at trying to build such an app, try Reeder too! It's an RSS Feeds reader that is similar to Pocket but the design shows more consolidation and more effective for reading!

    Nevertheless, the business model for such value-adding apps. :(

    Dennis

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  3. Having a very busy life, but would like to be updated with daily information and don't want to check the history for continuing the reading, as you recommended, Pocket is a right choice.

    Smart Devices Users would like to have a simple, organized, categorized application. As in, we are born to be lazy, that's why we need a smart application to help us organize everything, read, stop, and continue reading afterwards.

    Actually I wonder if the sharing option is necessary. However, I like their idea about synchronization in between devices.

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  4. Hi Jim, don't forget to continue blogging. :D Reflection is a huge part of this course, and most of all I think all of us can really benefit from your thoughts and opinions. :D

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    Replies
    1. Hi Colin,
      I am certainly in agreement with you that blogging is a great way to reflect and learn from each other, and am I glad I have started this, thanks to you guys.

      The only problem that I'm still trying to wrestle with is this - how do you guys keep up with so many to do tasks including reading and commenting on each other's blog!! To reach multi-tasking capability, I have to get past my 'mono-tasking skills' honed over the last century - would work on this 21st century capability : )

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