It's solidly mid-summer
📅 July's almost over, Instapaper is the new Pocket, and some initial impressions of Bluesky
Summers go fast — too fast. It’s been a month since I’ve been able to sit down and write on a Saturday morning. I’m not complaining; I’m just trying to make sense of the gap since I last wrote here. We visited a friend over the 4th and picked some cherries, went sailing the next weekend, and traveled for a family reunion last weekend. Each was a lovely experience. In between, there was work (both of the paid and unpaid varieties).
Your July has probably been similar. Perhaps a camping trip here or a summer vacation there. Whatever the mix, I hope you’ve been enjoying your summer so far.
It’s cloudy this morning and surprisingly cool. I went out early to pick some plums. We have a bumper crop this season. There seems to be something special about this season. Everything seems to be especially bountiful. Usually we have a handful of blooms on our hydrangeas. This year, we have more than we’ve ever had. They are a beautiful blue.
Despite being solar-powered, I’m good with a cloudy start to today. When you’re running nonstop and pulled in a lot of different directions, it can feel good to pause, assess all of your open loops, and get re-centered before you launch into your next thing. I’m looking forward to that kind of day today.
How about you? What has your attention?
📚 Kobo and Pocket update
Mozilla shut Pocket down on July 8, 2025.
I’ve been using Raindrop.io since to save articles I come across on my phone. It’s okay; I like the ability to tag an article as I save it but don’t like the additional friction/steps compared to Pocket where I had Pocket permanently pinned to Share and, with one tap, content was saved.
Meanwhile, I turned off the Wi-Fi on my Kobo and have been able to continue reading my collection of articles in Pocket! I have lots of articles saved so I’m hoping this will work until Kobo releases replacement “read it later” functionality.
This week, Kobo announced it has selected Instapaper to replace Pocket and plans to have the functionality rolled out by the end of the summer. This is good news.
Here is the official press release:
Instapaper Rakuten Kobo Integration (Instapaper)
Good e-Reader covered it here:
Chris Krycho wrote a note about it here:
The community response is pretty positive on Reddit:
Reddit: Pocket | Instapaper
Instapaper has set up a dedicated welcome page for Pocket users with links to import and a 3-month premium trial.
For those of you who have been on a similar journey these past few months, will you be moving to Instapaper or did you find another tool you prefer?
💙 Bluesky
Last month, I mentioned I had started to use Bluesky. Since then, I noticed at least one of you has followed me — thank you. :)
Here are my initial impressions of Bluesky after a month of use:
The user interface feels very much like Twitter did in the old days, which is a good thing. It’s nice to have a microblogging platform again.
It’s unfortunate that it chose a product name where the logical URL was already registered. I’ve gone to Bluesky.com (which is a second-generation family business focused on planners) more than once instead of bsky.app but I’ve learned. :)
Right away, I liked how it renders article previews better than LinkedIn. (LinkedIn used to use a full-width image with the headline below but since it switched to its current format of a small thumbnail at left with headline to the right, posts about articles don’t look as good as native posts).
I’ve been surprised how many brands/companies don’t have an official presence on Bluesky yet. (Or if they do, they’ve simply reserved the @name but not even uploaded a logo.)
I’ve found many journalists and other early adopters active on the platform but, when compared to Threads, it seems like fewer everyday users are on Bluesky. The numbers back this up: Bluesky has over 35 million users (source), roughly a tenth of what Threads has amassed (source).
Despite fewer users, there seems to be more engagement than on Threads.
Even though I’m not following that many users, the posting volume can be hard to keep up with across multiple accounts. I’m still trying to figure out the best way to integrate into my life without it consuming too much time.
If you use Bluesky and have any tips, I’d welcome them and others in our community may, too.
Thanks so much for reading this issue. I hope you have a wonderful weekend.
Be well,
-Bryce
PS: I seem to be in a phase of trying out new software tools right now. Let me know if you enjoy hearing about this and would like more technology content. If it’s been boring you to tears, I apologize. Let me know what you’d enjoy more. You can always send me an email. Thanks!