Turncoat Politics

A couple thin web applications that are great - @TeuxDeux & @Instapaper

Whereas the dot-com-one-point-oh brought us capital investment in massive companies that were going to change the world, the fallout of all those technologies and dot-com-two-point-oh and whatever we are in now created a lot of these leaner apps and and thin web experiences that serve a specific function.  Innovation, democratization, and nerds with time on their hands were able to specialize the fringe and mid-level products that were already bundled into technologies, and some have even changed the way that we work and our expectations for how we work.

Innovation makes jobs easier for everyone.

There have been a couple things recently that I have started using.  My coworker told me about TeuxDeux a few months back when it was in Beta.  I didn’t think it was that interesting, but started using it, because like most people, I have a million things to do and am terrible at prioritizing- a product of too much stimuli growing up and not enough discipline.  We could probably use a generation of physically abusive nuns (but without the pedophile-y priests), to whip us back into shape.  If we could at least just get one dominant gaming platform, kids could learn commit to something and we’d be in a better place. 

Ok, so TeuxDeux is just a simple to-do list.  It rolls over tasks day to day and doesn’t over think anything.  One thing I wish it would do is cut and paste, because there are times when I want to read an article and I will save it in there.

See, that is where Instapaper.com comes in.  I have a load of things I WANT to read.  We all do.  Mostly we don’t read them.  I seem to have 25 tabs open by the end of the day and it makes my browser move like Betty White in a Snickers commercial.  With InstaPaper you can save pages by clicking a link in your bookmarks bar.  It saves the links at InstaPaper.com and you can check it out at your leisure.  Same as bookmarks, right?!   Sort of, but really specialized for short-attention-span culture because you can access the links on the go, and read them from your device when you have time.