Pocket https://blog.getpocket.com inside Thu, 09 Dec 2021 14:00:54 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.8.2 https://blog.getpocket.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/favicon.ico Pocket https://blog.getpocket.com 32 32 Year in Review: How we’re curating the web with you and our top Pocket features https://blog.getpocket.com/2021/12/2021-year-in-review/ Thu, 09 Dec 2021 14:00:53 +0000 https://blog.getpocket.com/?p=8314 All this year, we’ve been experimenting with features to help you discover articles and voices that are relevant to your interests, and better organize your lists so you can easily…

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All this year, we’ve been experimenting with features to help you discover articles and voices that are relevant to your interests, and better organize your lists so you can easily find the stories that fit your mood or your time available. We saw lots of users engaging with positive and meaningful content, which demonstrated to us that we were on the right path. Our annual Best of Pocket 2021 awards, which highlight the most-read and -shared stories this year, demonstrate the power of our Pocket community to curate a web that is worthy of time and attention. Today, we present the top Pocket features we worked on in 2021 that are making that possible. 

Personalizing your new Home in Pocket 

Historically, most of the content that people consume within Pocket starts with a save. You see a good story somewhere, save it to Pocket, and open the app later to read it. In the fall, we rolled out a Web-only beta launch of a fundamentally new experience within Pocket — a new “Home.” Currently available to users who log in to Pocket, Home is where you can find stories or sources that our content discovery team believes will be relevant to you. Plus, the more stories you save and the more you engage with Pocket, the better these recommendations will become. Unlike other recommendation sources, we always apply a human editorial layer to keep people from going down rabbit holes and ensuring high quality. In your new Home, we’ve added the following sections personalized for you: 

  • Recommended reads, just for you – This section is based on your recent saves in the last six months so it’s aimed at bringing you the articles you saved and want to read more about.
  • Recent Saves – At the top of the new home page, there’s a section that shows your three recent saves so you can quickly access it. You’ll notice at the bottom of each of those recent saves we give you the option to show similar articles. For some articles, we have additional articles where you can dive deeper into that topic or theme.

In addition to these two new personalized features on the new Home in Pocket, we’re experimenting with showing you your top three most-saved topics and listing popular articles in each section. The topics include self improvement, career, business, tech, health and fitness, entertainment and more. You’ll also find Editors’ picks, which are curated by Pocket editors based on the most-saved and engaged with articles in Pocket, and a new section for our most-read Collections (more about Collections towards the end of this article). 

We’ll be doing a lot to improve the Home experience in the coming months. We believe it will help you discover new things to read–right within Pocket. Here’s more on that:

Getting Pocket on Android organized for your high-quality reads

In the physical world, the act of organization is to help us strategically place things so we can easily get to them. In the kitchen, for example, we have the pots and pans close to the oven and the dishwasher right next to the sink. This year, we focused on creating features that help uncover the high-quality content you’ve already saved to your list in order to ultimately save you time, with new time-to-read filters and sorting options on our Android app. This month we’re releasing two new features that you can also find in our Android app: Viewed and Unviewed and Next and Previous. Here’s how these two new features will save you time: 

  • Get you faster to content with Viewed/Unviewed articles: Now, you no longer need to guess which articles you’ve read once you’ve saved them. From My List, all unviewed articles will be in bold. Once you’ve viewed the article, it will no longer be bold. We’ve also added three buttons — share, archive, and additional actions (represented as three vertical dots) — so that after you’ve finished reading your article you can send it to a friend, save it in your favorites, categorize it by tag or simply delete it. 
  • Moving forward with your Next article: From My List, once you’ve opened up an article, you’ll find the Next and Previous arrows at the bottom of your screen or when you scroll up. Tap the arrows to move you forward or backward within your list. These buttons help save you that unnecessary step of going back to My List. 

Discover new voices and stories with our Pocket Collections

Over the past year, Pocket editors have partnered with subject-matter experts to curate hundreds of Pocket Collections, which allow users to explore and go deeper on topics that interest them in ways that algorithmic recommendations or results often don’t allow. Collections put the best of the web at users’ fingertips, on a wide variety of topics (How to start meditating. How to write (almost) anything. Managing Zoom brain. What’s worth reading about the climate report) by taking the guesswork out of trying to figure out and find what’s worth your time and attention. 

You can now easily find all of our Collections on a dedicated tab and page, with new ones being published each week. (One of our most popular Collections even made our Most Read Articles in 2021: How to Talk to People You Disagree with.) 

What’s ahead for 2022

Pocket has long been known as the go-to place to discover, save and spend time with great stories from around the web. As we look to the year ahead of us, we will continue to empower users to spend time with the stories that matters most to them and to help users discover the very best of the web. 

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Celebrating Pocket’s Best of 2021 https://blog.getpocket.com/2021/12/celebrating-pockets-best-of-2021/ Wed, 01 Dec 2021 12:16:23 +0000 https://blog.getpocket.com/?p=8302 The year’s most intriguing ideas and indispensable advice, plus the top stories in science, technology, sports, culture, long reads, and more.

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Each December, Pocket celebrates the very best of the web — the must-read profiles, thought-provoking essays, and illuminating explainers that Pocket users saved and read the most over the past 12 months. Today, we’re delighted to bring you Pocket’s Best of 2021: more than a dozen collections spotlighting the year’s top articles across culture, technology, science, business, and more. 

We aren’t the only ones putting out Top 10 content lists or Year in Reviews, but we’d argue these lists are different from the rest — a cut above. Pocket readers are a discerning bunch: they gravitate to fascinating long reads that deeply immerse readers in a story or subject; explainers that demystify complex or poorly understood topics; big ideas that challenge us to think and maybe even act differently; and great advice for all facets of life. You’ll find must-read examples of all of these inside these eclectic Best of 2021 collections, from dozens of trustworthy and diverse publications.

The stories people save most to Pocket often provide a fascinating window into what’s occupying our collective attention each year. In 2019, the most-saved article on Pocket examined how modern economic precarity has turned millennials into the burnout generation. In 2020, the most-read article was a probing and prescient examination of how the Covid-19 pandemic might end

This year, the No. 1 article in Pocket put a name to the chronic sense of ‘blah’ that so many of us felt in 2021 as the uncertainty of the pandemic wore on: languishing. (For months, heads would nod all over Zoom whenever this article came up in conversation.) To mark the end of the year, we asked Adam Grant, the organizational psychologist and bestselling author who wrote the piece, to curate a special Pocket Collection all about how to leave languishing behind in 2021 — and start flourishing in 2022 by breaking free from stagnation and rekindling your spark. 

What you’ll also find in this year’s Best Of package: A journey through some of 2021’s most memorable events and storylines, as told through 12 exemplary articles that Pocket users saved to help them make sense of it all. Plus, recommendations from this year’s top writers on the unforgettable stories they couldn’t stop reading, and a special collection from those of us at Pocket about the 2021 lessons we won’t soon forget.

If you haven’t read these articles yet, save them to your Pocket and dig in over the holidays. While you’re at it, join the millions of people discovering the thought-provoking articles we curate in our daily newsletter and on the Firefox and Chrome new tab pages each and every day.

From all of us at Pocket, have a joyous and safe holiday season and a happy — and flourishing — new year.

Carolyn O’Hara is senior director of content discovery at Pocket. 

Methodology: The Best of 2021 winners were selected based on an aggregated and anonymized analysis of the links saved to Pocket in 2021, with a focus on English-language articles. Results took into account how often a piece of content was saved, opened, read, and shared.

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More Stories Behind the Podcasts: Slate’s Latest Curated Collections on Pocket https://blog.getpocket.com/2021/10/more-stories-behind-the-podcasts-slates-latest-curated-collections-on-pocket/ Thu, 28 Oct 2021 23:54:15 +0000 https://blog.getpocket.com/?p=8297 Pocket readers can look forward to all-new collections curated by Slate’s podcast hosts, coinciding with new seasons of One Year, Decoder Ring and the highly anticipated sixth season of Slow Burn, one of the most-popular podcast series in Slate’s portfolio.

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Slate and Mozilla’s Pocket have extended their ‘Behind The Podcasts’ collaboration, partnering on a series of new Pocket Collections to provide podcast and Pocket fans with even more opportunities to explore the behind-the-scenes stories that inspired some of Slate’s most successful podcasts.

This November, Pocket readers can look forward to all-new collections curated by Slate’s podcast hosts, coinciding with new seasons of One Year, Decoder Ring and the highly anticipated sixth season of Slow Burn, one of the most-popular podcast series in Slate’s portfolio, garnering more than 65M+ downloads since its launch in 2017. The curated Pocket Collections, which offer deep-dive reads, down-the-rabbit-hole research, and commentary straight from the hosts’ notes, are the perfect ‘companion pass’ to round out new episodes of Slate’s fan favorites. 

“Pocket is the ideal place to host our curated collections because it’s easy and seamless for readers and listeners to discover, manage, and go deep with the podcasts they love,” said Bill Carey, Director of Strategy at Slate. “We know there are many Pocket readers interested in the topics these shows cover who haven’t yet discovered Slow Burn or our other podcasts, which we think presents an exciting opportunity for audience growth.”

Pocket initially partnered with Slate in early August when the hosts of Slate podcasts One Year, Decoder Ring, How To! and Thrilling Tales of Modern Capitalism curated their own unique lists of recommended reads, videos and content, offering avid listeners an in-depth look into the research that inspired the creation of these podcasts. The additions to the ‘Behind The Podcasts’ collections will continue to publish on getpocket.com/slate, starting with the premiere of Slow Burn: L.A. Riots on November 3rd. New Slow Burn collections will be available every Wednesday and select forthcoming episodes from One Year, hosted by Josh Levin and Decoder Ring, hosted by Willa Paskin, will be available starting in November as well.

The award-winning Slow Burn podcast has turned into a bonafide franchise, inspiring both a docuseries on EPIX and a scripted series coming to Starz, starring Julia Roberts. Hosting this season is journalist and podcaster Joel Anderson, who will share with Pocket readers what he read, listened to, and watched as he investigated one of the most consequential moments in 20th century America: the 1992 Los Angeles riots following the acquittal of four LAPD officers in the brutal beating of Rodney King. This collection will serve as a guide to the season, providing listeners a list of the people, places, and moments that helped define this moment in history.  

“Partnering with Slate on these collections has been such a delight and really showcased the expertise of their hosts and the reach and flexibility of the Pocket collection format,” said Carolyn O’Hara, Director of Editorial at Pocket. “We are avid listeners to Slate’s podcasts ourselves, and it’s been gratifying to help deliver these behind-the-scenes deep dives that we know listeners often crave.”

Pocket has long been the go-to place to discover, save, and spend time with the most thought-provoking and entertaining content from around the web. Discover the best of the web by downloading the latest Pocket for Android on Google Play and App Store.

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Stories Behind the Podcasts: Pocket’s New Partnership With Slate https://blog.getpocket.com/2021/08/stories-behind-the-podcasts-pockets-new-partnership-with-slate/ Wed, 25 Aug 2021 16:36:17 +0000 https://blog.getpocket.com/?p=8294 Pocket fans now have their very own ‘back-stage pass’ to explore the stories behind their favorite Slate podcast episodes—straight from the hosts’ notes. 

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Pocket has long been the go-to place to discover, save, and spend time with the most thought-provoking and entertaining content from around the web.

Now, Pocket – a Mozilla product – has teamed up with Slate’s world-class podcast hosts to provide deep dives into the episodes their listeners can’t stop thinking about. Through curated Pocket Collections, podcast and Pocket fans will have their very own ‘back-stage pass’ to explore the stories behind their favorite Slate podcast episodes—straight from the hosts’ notes. 

“Mozilla’s Pocket is a perfect place for listeners and readers to discover and enjoy Slate’s incredible narrative storytelling across its pages and podcasts,” said Katie Rayford, Director of Media Relations at Slate. “We’re excited to connect our audience with additional featured content, including never-before-told stories from our hosts, from some of our newer podcasts, as well as our better-known series and episodes they’re most excited for.”

Hosts of popular Slates podcasts, including One Year, Decoder Ring, and Thrilling Tales of Modern Capitalism, will curate unique lists of recommended articles, videos, and podcasts that informed and inspired different episodes. The Slate-Pocket Collections will be published on getpocket.com/slate on a rolling basis, starting with One Day in 1977: Elvis, the Pledge, and Extraterrestrials. Josh Levin, the host of Slate’s ‘One Year’ podcast, has curated a list of fascinating reads about three wildly different events that happened on a single day in August 1977 and their greater social and cultural impact on America. These reads provide One Year listeners with an in-depth look into some of the stories Levin researched, studied, and was ultimately inspired by as he was creating the episode. 

“Pocket is dedicated to helping people discover and connect with great content across the web, and to go deeper on topics that interest them,” said Carolyn O’Hara, Director of Editorial at Pocket. “We are huge fans of Slate, and we are delighted to partner with them on these curated Collections so podcast fans can get behind-the-scenes reading lists from their favorite hosts.”

Can’t get enough of the Behind The Podcasts collections? Pocket will let you save your favorite articles from the Slate collections—as well as anything else you find online, such as videos, recipes, and shopping pages—to your personal Pocket, so you can enjoy them on your own time. Pocket will even read the stories you’ve saved aloud to you, just like another podcast.

Discover the best of the web by downloading the latest Pocket for Android on Google Play and App Store.

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Reflection: Embracing My Undulating Image https://blog.getpocket.com/2021/08/reflection-embracing-my-undulating-image/ Tue, 24 Aug 2021 03:03:00 +0000 https://blog.getpocket.com/?p=8292 “I felt over-rendered by images of what I had told the algorithm I wanted, things that were like me but not quite me.”

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This past May, Pocket and HerCampus teamed up to announce an essay contest asking college students to reflect on what it’s like to come of age in a hyper-online world for a $5,000 cash prize and the opportunity to be published and promoted on Pocket. There were over 800 entries, and we are excited to announce the winner of our contest — Esther Omole — and share her essay.

Angle your head between two mirrors and watch yourself watching yourself for a while. I never understood what my 7-year-old self loved about it. Sandwiched between two floor-length mirrors, I would pretend that the little Black girls dancing behind me in an accordion-like formation were my back up, my chorus. Now I feel suffocated by the memory of cascading versions of myself, recessing further than my eyes could trace. In a hyper-online world, this feeling is mirrored in the way I see my image read, projected, and thrust back to me by unflinching algorithms and ever-reflective screens.

As a result of the pandemic, I went into my final year of college waging a fervent war against my own loneliness. Like most, I clung to my devices as a way of digging my feet (or, in this case, the ever active thumb) into a world that was increasingly out of physical reach. I dragged my eyes down timelines, devoted daily scrolls to TikTok, and stared longingly at my explore page until it blurred into an addictive, multicolored collage. A host of unknown companies were learning me everyday via the internet, which had become my lounge, workplace, and school.

Through my increasing (admittedly, delicious) entanglement with the web, I got content that was more sharply tailored to me. As I grew lonelier, I offered up more time. I scrutinized my profiles, comparing myself to people who shared my interests, my age, and even likeness live out successes and failures that I hadn’t. I saw Black women like me harassed, dehumanized, and belittled on social media daily. I felt over-rendered by images of what I had told the algorithm I wanted, things that were like me but not quite me.

The result was a feeling of suffocation not unlike being wedged between the mirrors. I was consumed by my profiles, followers, and peers–like I was being guided along the current of my online life, watching unfamiliar mirror images of me bounce from platform to platform. Black women are subject to this kind of dissonance independent of the internet—we are often portrayed as universally hyper-sexual, hyper-masculine, angry, and resilient to pain in popular media. This is exacerbated by the hyper-connected online world, which often promotes these skewed archetypes of our own bodies and projects them back at us.

Confronted with these images at all angles, I searched for ways to reclaim the myriad pathways technology was offering me. I listened to other Black women share stories about loneliness online, found networks like Therapy for Black girls, and set up telehealth appointments all on the same screen. The globalized online world became a gateway to explore my individual complexity, the identity that was unique to me. I could be like my 7 years old self, strengthened by my own undulating reflections and multitudes. Instead of being made an unmade, scrutinized and hidden, I was doing the creating, watching myself grow in the selfie cam of my online world with pride. And I loved it.

Esther Abisola Omole is a Nigerian American visual artist, poet, and musician from Broward County, Florida. She is a recent graduate at Stanford University, where she studied Architecture and African and African American Studies. She is especially enamored with Black feminists poetics, Black creation and space making.

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Enter Our College Essay Contest for a Chance to Win $5,000 https://blog.getpocket.com/2021/05/enter-our-college-essay-contest-for-a-chance-to-win-5000/ Tue, 18 May 2021 18:43:02 +0000 https://blog.getpocket.com/?p=8259 We want to know about your experience coming of age in a hyper-online, always-connected world. If you or someone you know is a college student or class of 2021 graduate, we’d love to hear from you. In partnership with HerCampus, Pocket is sponsoring a college essay contest called The Future Connection.

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The world this year’s college graduates will inherit is vastly different than the one they grew up expecting. COVID-19, a changing political climate, and a fluctuating economy all have something to do with it. But one of the biggest factors: continuous advancements in technology. New developments in social platforms, artificial intelligence, and augmented reality continue to disrupt the status quo, and the people who best understand both the advantages of and challenges of these dramatic shifts are online in their childhood bedrooms and dorm rooms right now. 

We want to know about your experience coming of age in a hyper-online, always-connected world. If you or someone you know is a college student or class of 2021 graduate, we’d love to hear from you. In partnership with HerCampus, Pocket is sponsoring a college essay contest called The Future Connection. We are looking for 300-500 word essays on what it’s like to come of age in a hyper-online world. One winner will be awarded a $5,000 cash prize plus a mentorship and publication opportunity with Mozilla and Pocket.

The Contest 

Living in the digital age can mean something different to everyone, and we want to hear what it means to you. To enter, answer the following prompt in 300-500 words: “What does it mean for you to come of age in a hyper-online, always-connected world?” Get creative, have fun with your essay, and don’t be afraid to let your personality shine. You can read the full official rules here

The Prize

One winner will have their essay published and featured on Pocket. And that’s not all. The winner will also receive a personal mentorship call with a Mozilla executive and take home a $5,000 cash prize. 

Timeline

Visit our contest page for The Future Connection writing competition. Be sure to submit your essay by Tuesday, July 15th, 2021, by 11:59 p.m. PT for the opportunity to win. The contest will kick off on May 14th during the epic To The Future graduation event hosted by Hercampus, featuring speeches and performances by celebs, CEOs, actors, politicians, and spring graduates. 

Winner Selection 

The winner will be announced on Wednesday, July 30th, 2021. Essays will be reviewed by a panel of expert judges, including Mozilla CMO Lindsey Shepard and Her Campus Media co-founder, CEO, and Editor-in-Chief Stephanie Kaplan Lewis. 

This graduation season, Pocket wants to continue the conversations about what’s next in technology and support your writing ambitions with The Future Connection essay competition. To learn more and enter for your chance to win, visit www.hercampus.com/mozillacontest and follow @pocket and @hercampus on Instagram for more exciting updates.

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Latest Pocket for Android features make it easier to find the content you’ve saved https://blog.getpocket.com/2021/04/latest-pocket-for-android-features-make-it-easier-to-find-the-content-youve-saved/ Wed, 21 Apr 2021 16:00:00 +0000 https://blog.getpocket.com/?p=8238 Pocket has always been your go-to place to discover, save and spend time with the great stories from around the web. The trouble was finding the time to read those…

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Pocket has always been your go-to place to discover, save and spend time with the great stories from around the web. The trouble was finding the time to read those articles, plus sifting through that ginormous list. Ack!

Today, we’ve added new features to Pocket for Android so you can easily sort through your list to help you quickly get to the reads that match your mood or moment. Here’s a list of today’s new features: 

Find more stories in your list faster with new sorting options

If you’re a voracious reader, we bet there are articles since the day you downloaded the Pocket app, plus articles you saved last month, last week or even this morning. So, how do you decide which ones to read? 

Now, with our new search-and-sort feature you’ll be able to sort through your List by newest saved, oldest saved, shortest to read and longest to read. Go to List and on the right hand side, click the three bars button. From there a menu will pop up for you to decide how you’d like to display your saves. Plus, we’ve moved the search bar to the top of your List, so it’s easier to access. Finding the perfect article that fits your mood is right at your fingertips.

New search and sort helps you find stories faster

Find articles to read based on how much time you have 

If you’re someone who sticks to a schedule, this new feature will keep you on time. Within your saved articles in your List, tap into search, and filter your saves by how much time you have. Organized in four categories, they are: Quick reads which are less than 5 minutes; Medium reads which are 6-10 minutes; Long reads which are 11-20 minutes and Very Long reads which are over 21+ minutes.

Search by estimated reading time

Whether you’re in between meetings or want some light bedtime reading, you don’t have to worry about running over time with this new feature. These estimates are based on an average 220 words-per-minute reading speed.

More to come in 2021

For the past few months we’ve been busy experimenting with exciting new features based on feedback from Pocket users. We usually keep these experiments under wraps until we are ready to share them out to everyone. But we’re going to try something new this year and let you know about more of these experiments early on. So, please continue to check back here for updates on upcoming experiments and features that we’ll be launching throughout the year.

You can download the latest Pocket for Android on Google Play.

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Your List Just Got Better in Pocket on Your Desktop https://blog.getpocket.com/2021/01/your-list-just-got-better-in-pocket-on-your-desktop/ Thu, 28 Jan 2021 17:00:00 +0000 https://blog.getpocket.com/?p=8143 2020 was an unprecedented year, when so much of our lives took place inside our homes and online. It didn’t help that world events had us all doomscrolling for hours…

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2020 was an unprecedented year, when so much of our lives took place inside our homes and online. It didn’t help that world events had us all doomscrolling for hours on end. But we know here at Pocket that through it all, you still saved countless hidden gems in your own Pocket. Our Best of 2020 was proof of all the thoughtful saving and reading we did together.

This helped us prioritize the improvements we’re thrilled to share with you today. They’re all about helping you get the most out of all you’ve saved to Pocket.


Dive right into your list

Starting today, you can see more of what you’ve saved at a glance on your desktop. Use your mouse to hover over one of your saves to add tags, archive it, or share it with others.


Sharing is caring

Whether your list is made up of saves from our editors’ recommendations or gems you unearthed in your own explorations, with our latest update, it’s a cinch to share. Simply hover over the story, then click to share it on social media, via email, or to your own Pocket followers.


Enjoy a streamlined list view

If you prefer to see your Pocket saves in a compact list, you’re in luck. Our popular list view has a brand new layout with titles and actions that pop. Tagging, favoriting, archiving, and more are easier to access and use — these actions appear right next to all your saves.


Let’s tag it

You can organize all of your great stuff in Pocket with a tag. Add a tag to an article, video, or whatever you’re saving to easily categorize your content, then look it up by category later. Pin your most important tags to the sidebar for quick access, or search to find everything under a particular tag.

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Year in Review: What We Read in Pocket in 2020 https://blog.getpocket.com/2020/12/year-in-review-what-we-read-in-pocket-in-2020/ Mon, 07 Dec 2020 16:20:15 +0000 https://blog.getpocket.com/?p=7835 The things we save and the stories we read say a lot about us. And every day, people around the world save millions of articles, videos, memes, and more in…

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The things we save and the stories we read say a lot about us. And every day, people around the world save millions of articles, videos, memes, and more in Pocket — making it a unique window into what’s occupying our collective attention.

What emerges this year from a look at the reading and saving habits of the Pocket community is, unsurprisingly, a picture of millions of people grappling with a global pandemic — trying to stay informed and to process the new uncertainty in their lives. But what also emerges is a portrait of tremendous curiosity and resilience in the face of unprecedented challenges.

More than 703 million links were saved to Pocket in 2020 – up from 680 million last year – and people spent more than 12.3 million hours reading with us.

Each year, we celebrate the articles that fascinated us the most over the previous 12 months. This year, we decided to go a little deeper and look for trends and collective interests that emerged during this unusual and unforgettable year. What we found is that, beyond processing the pandemic, Pocket users showed a clear interest in learning how to better connect with others, and in changing the way they approach their work and careers under new and difficult circumstances.

Here are four trends that stood out:


Processing the pandemic

This year, science journalist Ed Yong’s prescient feature “How The Pandemic Will End,” published in The Atlantic, claims the title of most-read article of 2020. Written in March as COVID-19 began to overwhelm hospitals in Europe and shut down parts of the U.S. economy, it reads like a blueprint for what the world could have done to get the coronavirus pandemic under control.

Join us Wednesday, December 16 for a special live event with Ed Yong to discuss his Best of 2020 article. Register here

All in all, a quarter of the top 100 most-saved and most-read articles in Pocket in 2020 concerned the coronavirus pandemic. That might not sound like a lot, given how omnipresent the virus was this year, but it’s unprecedented for a single topic to be the focus of so much of Pocket users’ attention. 

A look at the most-saved articles in Pocket by month shows how coronavirus dominated our attention, and traces the mood swings of an anxiety-riddled year.

What else occupied our minds? Articles that fall into the broad category of “self improvement” also comprised a quarter of the top 100 articles this year — including pieces such as Want to Be More Productive? Try Doing Less and The Eight Secrets to a Fairly Fulfilled Life. (The bulk of the remainder of the top 100 was a mix of articles in the health, politics, tech, and food categories.) That’s a marked decline from 2019, when self improvement tips and hacks comprised nearly 40 percent of the top 100 articles, including pieces such as Why You ProcrastinateThe Art of Decision-Making and How to Read 80ish Books a Year.

Another decline this year: Interest in traditional career advice. Last year, career-oriented pieces, such as How to Be Successful and Your Professional Decline Is Coming Sooner Than You Think, made up 10 percent of the top 100. This year, the only career-oriented piece that cracked the top 100 that didn’t concern remote work or coronavirus was about the pitfalls of chasing achievement: ‘Success Addicts’ Choose Being Special Over Being Happy.


More self-care, less performative hustle

Last year, the interest in career advice could be summed up in a single, predominant theme: “Hustle culture.” Some of the most-saved pieces in 2019 reflected our high-achieving ambitions.

In 2020, that trend shifted noticeably. This year, stories that prioritized cutting yourself some slack and de-stressing rose to the top of the heap.

That’s not to say that Pocket users gave up on their quest for productivity. It was just a gentler approach, as reflected in these popular articles:


How to connect

Pocket users love a good “how to.” In the summer of 2019, “how to” was the most common two-word phrase in headlines saved to Pocket. Most of the articles were timeless lifehacks, such as: 

But amid the stresses of 2020, that trend saw a noticeable dip. It wasn’t just that people were saving fewer “how to” stories — the very nature of what people looked to learn changed dramatically.

And as political rancor dominated headlines and calls for racial justice swept the U.S., many Pocket users gravitated to advice on how to forge deeper connections with others. Several of the most saved “how to” stories this year were about how to better communicate and effect change during times of intense partisanship and social upheaval.


All Zoom’ed out

In 2019, not a single story about remote work made it into the top 400 most-saved articles in Pocket. Unsurprisingly, that changed dramatically this year. 

In March, the first month of the mass shift of non-essential workers to working from home, Pocket users gravitated to straightforward stories about how to set up temporary home offices. In April, as many office workers realized their at-home stay would last longer than they initially realized, a new phenomenon called ‘Zoom fatigue’ crept in.

May saw people struggling with their new normal, while June, July, and August had them searching for ways to improve productivity as they settled in for the long haul. By September, the focus shifted to processing: Understanding what a more permanent WFH life looks like and how it will affect the economy – and us – in the long run.


MARCH – Eager for Guidance


APRIL – Uncertainty Creeps In


MAY – Worrying


JUNE – Adapting


JULY – Adapting


AUGUST – Adapting


SEPTEMBER – Looking forward


You’ll find plenty more fascinating reads in our Best of 2020, where we’ve singled out the very best of this year’s stories on culture, tech, science, and more.

If you haven’t read these articles yet, save them to your Pocket and then dig in over the holidays. While you are at it, join the millions of people discovering the thought-provoking articles we curate in our daily newsletter and on the Firefox and Chrome new tab pages.

From all of us at Pocket, have a joyous and safe holiday season and a happy new year.

Team Pocket

The post Year in Review: What We Read in Pocket in 2020 appeared first on Pocket.

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Celebrating Pocket’s Best of 2020 https://blog.getpocket.com/2020/11/best-of-2020/ Mon, 30 Nov 2020 12:00:00 +0000 https://blog.getpocket.com/?p=7827 Dive into an extraordinary collection of articles about the people, events, and, yes, the virus that shaped a year we will never forget.

The post Celebrating Pocket’s Best of 2020 appeared first on Pocket.

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Each December, Pocket celebrates the very best of the web—the must reads, new perspectives, and fascinating deep dives that Pocket users loved the most over the past 12 months. Today, we’re delighted to bring you Pocket’s Best of 2020: an extraordinary collection of articles about the people, events, and, yes, the virus that shaped a year we will never forget.


Join us Wednesday, December 16 at 5pm EST for a special live event with Ed Yong to discuss his Best of 2020 article. Register here

This year, science journalist Ed Yong’s prescient feature “How The Pandemic Will End,” published in The Atlantic, claims the title of Most-Read Article of 2020. Written in March as COVID-19 began to overwhelm hospitals in Europe and shut down parts of the U.S. economy, it reads like a blueprint for what the world could have done to get the coronavirus pandemic under control.

You’ll find more fantastic reads throughout our Best of 2020 collection, where we’ve singled out the year’s top stories on culture, tech, science, and more.



New this year: a Life in 2020 category, with engrossing reads on ‘Zoom fatigue,’ the pitfalls of too many showers, and our newfound love of sweatpants. In Making History, revisit indelible 2020 moments with Rep. John Lewis’s moving final essay about the soul of America, and an oral history of March 11, the day many Americans went from being oblivious about coronavirus to panic-buying toilet paper.

If you haven’t read these articles yet, save them to your Pocket and dig in over the holidays. While you are at it, join the millions of people discovering the thought-provoking articles we curate in our daily newsletter and on the Firefox and Chrome new tab pages each and every day.

From all of us at Pocket, have a joyous and safe holiday season and a happy new year.

Team Pocket

Methodology: The Best of 2020 winners were selected based on an aggregated and anonymized analysis of the more than 703 million links saved to Pocket in 2020, with a focus on English-language articles. Results took into account how often a piece of content was saved, opened, read, and shared. 

The post Celebrating Pocket’s Best of 2020 appeared first on Pocket.

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