Web Publishing Archives | The Digital Reader

Instapaper is Charging for Premium Once More – The Free Ride is Over

7 August, 2018 // 0 Comments

One of the first things that Pinterest did when it bought Instapaper from Betaworks 2 years ago was to make Instapaper's premium service free for all users. Now that Instapaper is independent (and [Read More ...]

Gutenberg, WordPress, & You: the What, the Why, and the How

6 August, 2018 // 1 Comment

If you have a WordPress site, chances are you have heard of something called Gutenberg. You could have seen one of the posts written about it over the past 18 months (such as mine), or you may have [Read More ...]

Come Join my Facebook Group

5 August, 2018 // 0 Comments

I've mentioned this in various places on social media, but I don't think I've announced on the blog that I officially launched my Facebook group last month. It's called The Help Desk, and it's a [Read More ...]

Twitter Will lock Your Account If You Change the Display Name to “Elon Musk”

26 July, 2018 // 4 Comments

I just found a 100% effective way to cut back on my time wasted on Twitter. In what is very likely a response to scammers impersonating the South African billioniare, Twitter is now automatically [Read More ...]

No One Wants to Own Instapaper

17 July, 2018 // 9 Comments

Originally launched by Marco Arment as an iPhone app, the save for later service Instapaper was sold to Betaworks in 2013, who then sold it to Pinterest in 2016. Now Instapaper is being spun out as [Read More ...]

How to Tell How Many Followers You Lost in the Great Twitter “Purge” of 2018

13 July, 2018 // 3 Comments

In what is being widely mis-characterized as a purge of fake users, earlier this week Twitter started removing "locked" accounts from the follower counts belonging to active user. According to [Read More ...]

Do You Still RSS?

11 July, 2018 // 66 Comments

The fifth anniversary of the passing of Google Reader went largely unremarked in most circles, but there was some coverage on Techdirt and other sites (Wired even called for a revival of RSS). RSS [Read More ...]

Goodreads’s New Android App is Faster, Smaller, and Also Makes Julienne Fries

26 June, 2018 // 1 Comment

Following several weeks of public beta testing, Goodreads has launched a new Android app. Try the new Explore page, where you can browse books trending on Goodreads, new releases hot off the presses, [Read More ...]

Making Your Own Custom Facebook and Twitter Share Links/Buttons for Beginners

14 May, 2018 // 2 Comments

Share buttons for social media such as Facebook and Twitter are a great way to grow your audience organically and let your readers support your work by sharing it their social media networks. The [Read More ...]

Thirty Minutes a Day is All It Takes to Automate Your Social Media Activity, But I Don’t Recommend it

23 April, 2018 // 6 Comments

As I am sure you know, there aren't enough hours in the day to get all your work done. This is why we are always looking for new ways to automate tasks, and why I started the Tech Tools for Authors [Read More ...]

I’m Leaving Twitter

12 April, 2018 // 29 Comments

The problem with Twitter is that the folks who run the show don't understand their userbase or their product. We can see this in how Twitter's more useful features such as hashtags and quote retweets [Read More ...]

Tech Tools for Authors #4: Social Media

11 April, 2018 // 2 Comments

Authors have to juggle a lot of balls in today's book industry. Not only do they have to write that next book, they also have to market it, balance the ledgers, woo their fans on social media, do [Read More ...]

Infographic: Social Media Cheat Sheet

10 April, 2018 // 3 Comments

A picture is worth a thousand words, and nowhere is that more true than on social networks. This is why it is incredibly important that the media you use on social networks fit the standard sizes. [Read More ...]

Two-Thirds of Tweeted Links are Posted by Bots, and Other Not Terribly Useful info

9 April, 2018 // 1 Comment

If you ever wondered just how many links you see on Twitter were shared by a person, the answer is: not too damn many. We still don't know what impact they have, though. From Pew Research Center: In [Read More ...]

Twitter Changes Rules to Crack Down on Bots, Bans Mass Tweeting and Duplicate Accounts

21 February, 2018 // 1 Comment

A few weeks back Facebook and Twitter were humiliated by a NYTimes piece that detailed the back alley practices of the social media industry, and now the latter is finally doing something about the [Read More ...]