'I Need to Read This' saves URLs worth reading later

If you've ever used Read It Later, you'll probably like a new service called "I Need to Read This." It does the same thing, letting you bookmark stories that you want to read, but not right away.

What's nice about I Need to Read This is that you can use all of its services through bookmarklets instead of having to install anything in your browser. There's simply "I Need to Read This" and "Read an Article" bookmarklets, which you drag up to your browser's toolbar, and on any story you want to bookmark you just hit the former bookmarklet to save it. Then, to read what you have saved you click the latter "Read an Article" button, which takes you to the latest story. Clicking it again takes you to the second most recent, and so on.

Along with skipping to stories directly, the service maintains a complete list of stories you've saved, which is presented in reverse-chronological order. Like Read It Later, this is all saved in the cloud so you can access it from any computer, and because it's bookmarklet-based you could use it even from public computers without needing special permission to install anything.

There's not much more to it than that, which is what I like about it as a bookmarking tool. For power users, though, there is a Firefox Extension that gives you the bookmarking and quick reading buttons, right in your browser, although it's currently listed in the experimental section of Mozilla's add-ons.

Saved articles can be found in your source list, where all the ones that you've already read are greyed out, with the new ones showing up on top.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

[john94857]

Probably a good idea. I usually just bookmark things I want to read later (and usually end up with a huge list of links)... :)

[rprice55]

Josh, just so you know, Read It Later has bookmarklets as well:
http://readitlaterlist.com/addons

They have three, 'Read It Later', 'Mark as Read', and 'Reading List'. I use them on IE at work to sync with my Firefox install at home.

[Josh.Lowensohn]

Hey thanks--I knew it had bookmarklets, but that tool's secret sauce is definitely the extension which gives you the offline goodies. Will add!

[stechz_]

I'm one of the guys who made ineedtoreadthis (big thanks, Josh, for the post)! I just wanted to mention that the Firefox plugin is still in very early development, so please only download it if you are OK with a few rough edges.

We're on twitter: @ineedtoreadthis, so please be sure to let us know what you think!

[rjhayton]

Anyone know how ineedtoreadthis stacks up against instapundit: http://www.instapaper.com/ ?? They have an RSS feed of things you add, and also keep a history. They have a button you can add to your browser, a "read later" button that adds it automatically to your list.

[rjhayton]

Sorry, it is named instapaper not instapundit.

[StartupGeek]

I need to read this - two guys, side project, very cool application. If you have suggestions for them go over to getsatisfaction and find them there. They seemed really open to comments and feature requests. My question is how do you go about monitizing technology like this. If we were talking about an iPhone it's easy - .99 per download. But what about on the web? How can micro-apps like this generate enough revenue to make it worth while for developers to put up with all the headaches you are going to create for them. (and please don't say advertising).

[relaxedguy--2008]

As a user of Read It Later, I would easily trade all of this for a decent Delicious FF Extension. We need reminders, not just RSS-enabled lists. My Read It Later list had 45 entries yesterday, ouch. My goal is to get bookmarks off my desktop and into something that is GTD-aware enough to help me work through the list without requiring a manual.

Delicious is far superior to all of these solutions in every way except for simplicity, which is what most people want.

Companies keep getting these extensions *almost* good enough. Maybe another 5 years and we'll have a simple and smart bookmarking system that works for power user and fans of basic functionality.

Re: monetization, the obvious answer is advertising based on what you're reading. But if we can't get the simple bookmarking sytem right, this isn't going to happen anytime soon.

I don't want two guys working on a side project, I want a company doing it right and feeding back our ideas.

[zenlive]

How is this different than instapaper, which has been out for over a year +.

Firefox extensions are over-rated. Remember there're still over 70%+ people using IE6/7/8.

[Dalkorian]

Honestly, that's their problem. The rest of the world suffers enough because of the bad decisions of that 70% and we shouldn't have to suffer more. If it was up to me, all IE users would be cut off from the internet entirely to protect the internet community from them.

Leashed slaves running amok on the streets (internet exploder users on the internet) is the most offensive thing a thinking man can conceive.

[arcane14]

These services are interesting, but I just send such stories to a special Gmail suffix, like [e-mail], then have a filter set up to dump them all into their own label. Helps keep them in my mind, since I see them whenever I check email.

[AndrewRich]

I just open whatever it is in a new tab and let it stay until I'm ready to read it. Not sure how this service would really help me.

[DollyCali]

Gee, if I had this I wouldn't need to have 3000 mystery bookmarks?