Why Pocket Reader App Is My Favorite Offline Reading App

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Pocket Offline Reading App
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Whenever I share any productivity tips or time-management tips, I highly recommend focusing on one job at a time. Being a blogger, I stumble upon lots of articles in the course of a day.  Indeed, while writing this particular piece of content, I have at least 10 extra tabs opened which I discovered while reading more about the Pocket app. I find the articles worth reading, and so I open them to read later.

The problem with having too many tabs opened with unread articles is that it kills productivity. One way to deal with this problem is by bookmarking the pages, but who uses bookmarking sites like Delicious and StumbleUpon anymore for re-discovering content?

We are all smart users these days, and once we have seen an article, we know how to Google it again. But there is a far better solution which I have been using for the past 14 months, and it is working so well for me that I would like to share it with you.  In today’s post I will be sharing information with you about the excellent Pocket reader app (formerly Read It Later!), which is one of the best apps for offline reading.

Why every blogger should use the Pocket reader app?

Whenever we are browsing the Internet or Facebook, we spend a lot of time reading new articles that we discover or that are shared by our social group. It’s great to read new material, but if you are doing so at a time when you are supposed to be doing something else, you are killing your productivity. A good solution is to have a fixed reading time (I prefer reading at night), and focus on our work during work hours.

As I have mentioned before, reading is one of the things that is a must for any blogger, and if we organize our reading and content discovery time, we will be more productive.

Now let me show you how Pocket reader works, and why you should use it.

Pocket Read it Later App
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Pocket reader app is an offline reading app that is available on multiple platforms (mobile, tablets, PC), and it works seamlessly with many popular apps like Zite, Twitter, Flipboard, etc.

When I first installed the Pocket app on my iPhone, it was known as Read It Later, but the company later re-branded the app and launched Pocket app.

I had to install the app for offline reading, as I’m a frequent traveler, and Pocket was the best available option at that time. It still is the best option, in fact, though Readability is a close second as an alternative.

According to Pocket’s website, they have 10 million registered users, which is a huge number. From a blogger’s point of view, we should tap into that to get more returning visits for our articles!

How the Pocket app works

As an offline reading app Pocket offers bookmarklets, and integrates with most of the reading apps to save any webpage for offline reading. According to a recent video by Pocket CEO Nate Weiner, people prefer to save an article on the pocket rather than reading it right away, which of course makes sense.

Pocket App Reach
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Even when I’m using Zite, Flipboard or another iPhone reading app, I generally save any good articles that I want to rediscover to Pocket. What’s best about this app is that it offers a standalone app for every platform and every device. Regardless of whether you are using Android, Mac, iOS, Windows, or Chrome OS, Pocket has a stand-alone app for you. And you can always use the web version of Pocket as well.

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The video above is a recent presentation by Nate, where he shared some great insight about the usefulness of Pocket and some new features such as Highlights and Interest. What I liked most about what I learned from this presentation is that this company cares about user experience, and with the addition of features like Interest, now I can quickly re-discover old saved articles on my Pocket app.

How a blogger can make the most of the Pocket app

Pocket is considered a “read it later” app or an “offline reading tool”. Here are some ways in which I use Pocket, and some additional tips for using it for optimal performance.

  • While working on the Internet, if you discover a great article, save it to read later, when you have time. This is not limited to text content but is also useful for videos, slides and other types of media.
  • Whenever you are traveling and have time to read, Pocket will allow you to read all of the interesting and valuable content that you saved for later.  (Remember this is offline reading with no need for an Internet connection.)
  • Always remember to sync your content before traveling or leaving an Internet zone. This will ensure that all of your saved articles are on your reading app.
  • You can add the bookmarklet on your browser or download the Pocket app for your device from the official page here.
  • While browsing, you might have stumbled upon a website, product or article that you would like to write about on your blog.  With Pocket app’s bookmarklet, you can save it for later use. Think about how you usually save new articles and ideas that come to you while browsing. I was using Evernote before, but now I prefer using Pocket, as it helps me to decrease the clutter.
  • Most importantly, with the Pocket app you can share articles to multiple social networks with a single click. This will make sure that your social media profile is always updated with the best content. The best part is that it works seamlessly with Bufferapp.
  • Pocket Publisher program will let you check the stats of your site on Pocket. It will give you detailed insight into how people are consuming content from your website on Pocket. They also have buttons for blogs, which will help your readers to save articles for offline reading. You can also take advantage of this plugin to quickly add a “Read It Later On Pocket” button at the blog’s sidebar. To gain access to Pocket’s publisher program, you need to login using your free Pocket account, and verify your site to get access. You can do so from this page.
  • The clean layout of the Pocket app will make reading fun. If you are using the Readability app for cleaner reading, you should switch to Pocket.

One feature that Pocket is still lacking is “best of Pocket”. Pocket should add a feature that will allow us to discover the most saved or shared articles on Pocket. This would help us to discover some amazing content loved by people around the globe.

Overall, as an individual and as a blogger, Pocket is one of my favorite apps. If you have never used it before, or if you are not using it optimally, I highly recommend that you to start doing so right away. Pocket will not only help you to stay productive, but it will also enable you to save the best of the web in your pocket.

If you find this article useful, do consider sharing it on Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus. You can also join ShoutMeLoud on Facebook and Twitter.

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Authored By
A Blogger, Author and a speaker! Harsh Agrawal is recognized as a leader in digital marketing and FinTech space. Fountainhead of ShoutMeLoud, and a Speaker at ASW, Hero Mindmine, Inorbit, IBM, India blockchain summit. Also, an award-winning blogger.

6 thoughts on “Why Pocket Reader App Is My Favorite Offline Reading App”

  1. Fazilur Rahman

    Thanks Harsh..Just the second I started reading one by one articles of you on making blogs a profitable one I founded so many supportive articles under those.Hence started thinking of having a option like what you have mentioned here in this article as you said we are not looking on the bookmarks most time. Nice Job dude..Keep going..

  2. Alpesh Desai

    Yes Bro it is a good app for every blogger and reader

    1. Harsh Agrawal

      Hello Alpesh, Thanks a lot for checking out my post, I’m glad you agreed with my points.

  3. Mick

    My pocket app does not save all comments to my note 5 ?

  4. Vishal Kataria

    No way Harsh!

    I’ve been using the Pocket app for almost 2 years now and didn’t know that it could be used offline too 😛

    Thanks a ton 🙂

  5. Kamal G

    Really Great List of Pocket Reader App Brother,Thanks a lot for sharing,good work,keep it up.

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