Nicola Balkind

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I Love Pocket

By Nicola Balkind

Pocket

I bloody love Pocket, so I’m going to tell you about it.

If this reads like an ad, it’s because I don’t know how else to tell you how much I was waiting for this app. I had a pain, and this solved it. In return, I’ll gush about it to anyone who will listen.

Last year I used this app so much I was in the upper 1 percentile of its users. I know, right?

 

Ok Nicola, so what does it do?

It took a long time for the internet to help us to deal with the inevitable information overload that it brings.

In the beginning, there were regular ol’ bookmarks. A bit later tabs finally came into fashion, and various other bookmarklets that allow you to save bits and pieces here and there.

I tried all these things, and would invariably forget to go back to the content I’d squirrelled away in all the tree-knots and shallow-dug holes of the internet.

And then there was Pocket. My very own content crack den. It’s a place to save all the articles and pages and videos and whatever else that you haven’t gotten around to reading online. It’s a plain text reader, it has some great design options, and it’s fully integrated.

Here’s what my Pocket list looks like today:

Pocket list

 

As well as putting the content you want to save for later all in once place, it also pares it down into a really easy-to-read format. It keeps the images and important links, but ditches the ads.

Here’s what a typical post looks like:

New Yorker Pocketed

 

Much better than most websites, right?

 

How does it work?

Pocket button

You can install a Pocket extension anywhere. I use it on Chrome and Twitter across all my devices.

There’s also an app for desktop and iOS/Android devices.

All you do from there is click the Pocket button on a page that you want to save (or a tweet with a link you want to save within it) and it’ll save it to your queue.

Once an article is saved to your queue, you can read it offline, distraction-free!

 

Key feature: Reading

Screen Shot 2015-03-23 at 14.51.10

My favourite features on Pocket are the reading adjustment options and the social sharing.

I stare at a screen for a huge chunk of the day, and it can get pretty wearying. One of my favourite things about Pocket is the Sepia tone reading option. It makes the screen and text more warm-toned, making it easier on the eyes. You can also change the font and text size to suit.

 

Key feature: Sharing

Screen Shot 2015-03-23 at 14.54.21

 

The social sharing options are my primary way of sharing links onto Twitter. It’s also my shortcut for curating my weekly Reading Week link list.

It’s pretty simple. I read a piece I like, and share it directly to Twitter, or to Buffer to go out at a better time, or I highlight a passage and save it to Evernote for later. Voila!

You can also favourite posts by clicking a wee star button, which saves all your favourite articles in a separate list. Pocket Premium also optimises everything you save for comprehensive search.

Years ago, Evernote promoted itself with some of the same features, but it also saves all the information locally, which makes the app a bit of a bloater. In my experience, Pocket is also much faster to sync.

 

Want to give it a go? You can visit the Pocket website here.

––

What’s your favourite read later app? Give me a shout in comments.

Share this:

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Filed Under: Social Media & Content Tagged With: app, getpocket, pocket, recommendation

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Trackbacks

  1. Reading Week #49 | robotnic.co says:
    April 17, 2015 at 4:00 pm

    […] my business blog, I waxed lyrical about my absolute favourite app, Pocket. I’ll get them to sponsor, like, my entire life […]

  2. Notebook: April Links | Nicola Balkind says:
    May 26, 2015 at 2:30 pm

    […] I Love Pocket – If you’ve followed me on social media for any length of time you’ll know I love this read-it-later app with all my pocket-shaped heart. Here’s why and how it’ll change your digital life, too. […]

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Nicola has worked with Purplefeather on various social media and copywriting campaigns. She is creative, reliable and professional and can be completely trusted with the voice of your brand – rare qualities indeed!
Andrea GardnerPurplefeather
We’ve employed Nicola’s services several times at Yomego and every time she has been absolutely fantastic in both outputs and attitude. Supporting our community management team, Nicola has added invaluable expertise in creating customer focused strategies for our clients and helping to draft truly compelling content plans. I have absolutely no hesitations in recommending Nicola’s services for anyone that places important on ensuring outputs are consistently exemplary.
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Nicola’s contributions to our projects for Channel 4 were invaluable: her huge knowledge of social media developments and online trends, together with her editorial flair and excellent writing skills made her invaluable in roles that encompassed community management, social media marketing, content strategy and product development. Her dedication, creativity, forward-thinking and attention to detail made her a major factor in the success of these projects. It was a pleasure to work with her, and I hope to work with her again!
Laura GraceMint Digital
Nicola was an important member of the Edinburgh International Film Festival Marketing Department and was key in the communication delivery of the Festival. In such a dynamic and demanding environment, Nicola delivered great content and was dependable throughout, an invaluable asset to the Festival.
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Nicola has been my number one go-to for freelance community management. She is incredibly efficient, she is clear with costs, time estimates and invoicing and completely reliable. She is a breath of fresh air in an industry which is plagued by self-promoting “gurus”: her range of skills and experience is broad and authentic. I really appreciate the way Nicola is uncomplicated to work with: she asks quick, straightforward questions about what’s required then sits down and gets the job done without fuss. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Nicola and would certainly work with her again.
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Nicola is crazy talented, knowledgeable and efficient when it comes to Social Media and Copywriting. I had the pleasure to work with Nicola on several online marketing projects over the course of almost two years. Not only is she a fountain of knowledge regarding latest trends and best practices for both Social Media and online writing – she is also able to put abstract ideas into action. Any team looking to improve their online presence would be lucky to get their hands on Nicola.
Eva MartinSERPS Invaders
Nicola and I worked together across several projects in the Yomgeo community management team. Nicola is great to work with, her attitude towards projects is always amazing and she is incredibly efficient, Her work is always of the highest quality, and I’ve learned a lot from working with her.
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Nicola is an experienced creative copywriter, with a great ability to produce quality pieces quickly and at short-notice. She has a great knowledge of social platforms and ability to apply this knowledge. Nicola is an absolute pleasure to work with and brings her creativity and personality to everything she does.
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