Read It Later – Now Open For Every Platform
Starting today, the complete Read It Later API is available to all developers. This means that anyone can develop and release fully functional Read It Later clients, applications, and mashups for any platform.
Previously, the API was a one-way street. It meant that apps like Twittelator could save new items to RIL but could not pull any data out. Now, apps built on the API can do anything RIL for Firefox and RIL for the iPhone can do, including syncing, tagging, account management, and more.
The most requested feature has been native apps for more platforms and as a solo developer, it’s just not possible for me to develop for every mobile device and browser. But, now with the new API, other developers can build Read It Later clients for Android, Blackberry, Palm, Chrome, and more.
I receive feature suggestions on a daily basis and even though a number of these ideas make their way into the core feature set, not every idea makes sense to include (even when they are GOOD ideas). By giving developers the ability to extend RIL, it means I can focus on making RIL as simple as possible while other developers can provide additional options to users.
As an example, one of the most requested features is integration with Delicious. This would be a great feature, but not one that every user would need/want. This is why it has never been implemented. But now it’s possible for a developer to create a RIL+Delicious mashup and share it with the other users who want this feature.
Any app created with the API can connect to RIL’s syncing service and sync a reading list to every device/browser the user uses, making RIL more portable than ever. The service, with over a million users and growing at 5,000 new users a day will instantly provide developers with a large audience. And to top it off, the API is available to both free and commercial applications.
The future of Read It Later is now up to you. If there is a platform you want to see Read It Later on, or a feature you’re dying to have, now is the time to grab an API key and start coding (or at least hassle that developer friend of yours).
I’m excited to see where this road leads and even more excited to see what you guys come up with!
Get Started:
