Marco.org - Job transition
After four years of my serving as Tumblr’s lead developer, Tumblr’s technical management needs have evolved to require types of experience that I don’t have, and my independent career has offered a lot of opportunities that I haven’t had the time to take full advantage of.
Marco Arment, the lead developer at Tumblr, is heading off to do other things. It sounds amicable, but…
It’s definitely time for Marco to do something structural with Instapaper, the ‘read later’ application, which is his baby.
The thinking among the smart people I talk to is that Instapaper definitely steps over the line of fair use, since it strips out ads in the ‘text view’.
Either Instapaper has to become a real company and figure out how to pay publishers for use, or he might have to redesign or shut down.
Right now, dozens of other services are integrating with Instaper — I just bumped into another iPhone Twitter client called Weet that does — and this is going to draw the attention of big media companies, inevitably. I bet he is only one step ahead of cease&desist.
