MakeMySummary Software Update: June 2020

We recently released an update for MakeMySummary. The following are the highlights of the update.

1.Pocket Integration

Pocket Integration is now built into the software and does not require Zapier to pull in new items. You can now connect MakeMySummary to Pocket from within the app. We pull in the new items from Pocket every 30 mins. Pocket is the best bookmarking software out there, that is free and
works seamlessly in every browser, operating system, and mobile. Firefox
now has Pocket integrated into its browser. As Firefox and Pocket user I
find it particularly helpful.

2.Beautiful Emails

We have moved from sending boring plain text emails to beautiful HTML
emails that render properly on mobile and desktops. All our transactional emails are now in HTML, no more ugly looking long URLs in the email. It also means we can convey the message in a more concise manner using colors, images, and familiar-looking controls. Reflecting MakeMySummary’s own ethos.

Go ahead and give it a try. Just make any summary in the app. If you are a
signed up user you will get an email with the summary — check it out here. If you are still trying it out, just ask for an email reminder to be sent with the summary — take a look here

3.Blog Feed Integration

You can configure MakeMySummary to fetch new items from Blogs you follow or already subscribe to. MakeMySummary polls for new items in the feeds every 30 mins. Almost all blogs have some form of RSS feeds that is
publicly available. Just that URL to the feed of a new blog into our integration.

You can try with some popular blogs that our users have tried out using the links below.

If your blog feed needs are more complex then you can still use our Zapier integration for those one-off needs. But for most blogs, this integration would be sufficient. There is no limit on how many feeds you can subscribe to on any of our plans.

A few popular blog feeds to try out:

• Harvard Business Review - http://feeds.hbr.org/harvardbusines
• Wired Magazine — https://www.wired.com/feed/rss
• Farnam Street — https://fs.blog/feed/

If you looking for inspiration here are some of the top blogs grouped by category to try out: https://detailed.com/all/

Tip: Open the URL for the blog you like and search for terms like RSS, Feed, Feeds, etc the good ones usually have an RSS feed. But almost all of them have a twitter feed. At this time you cannot connect twitter feed to MakeMySummary yet, that is scheduled for the next release so hold tight if your favorite blog has not shared an RSS feed.

4.Podcast Feed Integration

Similarly, you can configure MakeMySummary to pull new episodes from any Podcast feeds. Internally all podcasts have an RSS feed, using this we check for new episodes every 30 min. When we find the new episodes we summarize them for you and have it ready. Follow the instructions above for adding podcasts.

5.Email Digest

You can get the beautifully summarized summaries delivered to you via
email. Remember the HTML email format we just released. You can configure this integration to change the interval and content. You can
choose from 24h/12h/6h/3h/1h/None intervals. Content can be just the
links to the summaries or the full summaries.

We recommend a 3h or 6h interval with Full summaries. That way you need to dip into the subscription content only twice or thrice a day and still
stay ahead of the curve.

As much as we hate email, its still remains a popular and asynchronous form of communication. If you are a strict non-email-rian (a totally new word we just invented just now), we hear you and will have integrations that can send the summaries to popular apps like Todoist, Trello, etc. But if you are a non-email-rian already, then you can use our Zapier integration do accomplish this.

6.Youtube and Podcast monthly limits

We increased the Youtube and Podcast duration for all of our plans. The
free plan has 1hr of Youtube and Podcast limit every month. This should
give you a fair sense of the value of MakeMySummary. If you are not convinced yet, that is ok, please enjoy the higher limits.

For the users in Starter and Advanced plan, your Youtube or Podcast can now be longer than 1hr, we have now set it to 2hr. If this arbitrary limit is not acceptable please do get in touch with us, happy to hear arguments against it.

Previously published at https://medium.com/makemysummary/software-update-june-2020-b4f176a31797