Marco Arment sells majority stake in Instapaper to Betaworks

Didn’t see that one coming. I use Instapaper every single day, and I hope this keeps Instapaper around for a long time and frees up Marco to make more new stuff. From his post:

I’m happy to announce that I’ve sold a majority stake in Instapaper to Betaworks. We’ve structured the deal with Instapaper’s health and longevity as the top priority, with incentives to keep it going well into the future. I will continue advising the project indefinitely, while Betaworks will take over its operations, expand its staff, and develop it further.

I’ve been in a similar place before; having a successful project that can continue growing but needs a bigger team and more resources, but you don’t want to make it your entire career. Marco, it seems, felt similarly before he made the decision to sell.

Instapaper for Android

“Finally.”

I use a fairly cheap Android phone, because I don’t want to give ATT or Verizon any of my money, and I hate cell phone contracts. Instapaper was one of the apps I use everyday that was really hampered by the lack of a native client. Looks like that’s fixed, now.

The interesting thing here is that Marco Arment, Instapaper’s founder/developer, didn’t code the Android app himself. He hired an Android development house to do it. I wouldn’t be surprised to see more iOS-only apps go this way if it works out for him.