I had heard about Instapaper awhile back but didn’t give it much thought until a few weeks ago, and now I wish I had been using it all along.  For those of you unfamiliar with what Instapaper is, their website describes it simply as “A fast, easy, free tool to save web pages for reading later.”

Using Instapaper is fairly straightforward. You install bookmarklet that you just click when your on a page you’d like to save for later and it’s added to your list. This is great when browsing on a mobile device and don’t feel like reading a long article on such a small screen.  The website does a good job at helping you add the bookmarklet to your mobile bookmarks and now that all major smartphones FINALLY have copy and paste the process is even easier.

Instapaper also offers an API for other applications to add the functionality into their apps.  One app that I’ve found to take advantage of this is the twitter app Tweetie.  This has been great when I come across an article in a post that I’m interested in but either can’t or don’t feel like reading at the moment.

Google Reader users can also take advantage of the API thanks to the newly added “Send to” feature.  To enable it just go to Settings > Send To > and check the Instapaper box.

This service has been great in helping me remember to check out all the cool links and articles that I otherwise would’ve forgotten about.  Have any of you found other sites or applications that take advantage of the Instapaper API? If so please share.

Instapaper – A fast, easy, free tool to save web pages for reading later

Tweetie – Twitter client for the iPhone

Google Reader