Print publications might be bleeding big bucks, but that doesn’t mean nobody reads them. And since these are connected days, you’ll surely wish to share some fascinating print story with friends using internet technology.
But how do we share a physical newspaper article in the internet world? Look no further than Peekster. Originally launched in the UK, the service has expanded its visual article search to the United States with support for articles from The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times. The app works mostly as advertised in the video above. Take a photo of the text you’re reading in print, and the app will call up the web version of the story. From there, you can continue reading on your mobile device, share the story, or use a bookmarking service to save it.
I just tried Peekster out and the user experience is a goddamn mess — the tapping and swiping scheme fell short of intuitive. Surely the company will iron it all out. Soon enough, it might even be as easy as Googling the headline of the story on your mobile phone, clicking a link to the article, and using the ubiquitous share button to push it to Twitter/Facebook/Pocket/Instapaper.
Which makes you think. “Oh wait, what was wrong with just Googling and sharing articles myself? Was I doing it wrong?” Peekster seems to provide a tidy little solution for an admittedly specific problem, but how small of a problem is too small to solve?
We just debated this for a moment, and thought we’d put the question to you. Do you need an app to scan headlines so you don’t have to Google them? Is this something you want? Does anybody?