Kindle News: New, easy SEND TO KINDLE Button for getting website articles sent directly to your Kindle(s) or Kindle-reading apps - UPDATES 3/19-3/21

Amazon announced today (Tues. Mar. 20) a new, easier to use, Send to Kindle Button feature

This one works ONLY when websites put the button on their websites.  They gave no specific Google blogspot.com/blogger.com instructions, but I'm trying it on this site, with the button placed just below the article on any single-article page.

  I'm using Chrome browser but have now tested this button (for this site) with Mozilla Firefox browser too.

UPDATED Wednesday morning through the day and Thursday evening, after some testing of the feature to see if it works for a Google "blogger.com" or "blogspot.com" site like this one.  The gadget site commenters were asking the site reporters why the Kindle button was not on their sites :-)

  UPSHOT:
  With Google's Chrome browser, it works 1/3 of the time for this blog.
  With Firefox, it worked 99% of the time (and lightning fast)
  With Internet Explorer, it hasn't worked for me at all with this type of site,
    even when allowing all 'cookies' and using lower privacy (not a good idea).

NOTE: It works fine on the large organization Washington Post and TIME news sites, where people are more likely to want to use it and they have their own server setups and control.

  For Kindle users, this means that for the big sites that do put on the SendtoKindle button and test it with several browsers, you'll be able to send web articles direct to your Kindle(s) of choice, no matter what browser you're using.
  Amazon has it working with Wordpress blogs.  I suspect cooperation there with Wordpress, while Google blogger.com staff and Amazon may not be working together on this.

  IMPORTANT - This type of feature NORMALLY works only on SINGLE-article pages and NOT on the main page of many articles, which is how it is for all the various SendtoKindle programs. The focus is on a single article you may be reading specifically.
  But I've now received help from a Kindle developer who gave me some code which makes this button work from the Main page as well! when it does work (See 'UPSHOT' above.)
  Mozilla Firefox browser is the star on this one - works lightning-fast 99% of the time even for this Googgle-blogger.com blog -- I've found only one (short) article it could not process.

  You can click on any article's title to get the single-article page if wanted (and to see associated Comments or to add any), but it won't be necessary anymore.

  There can be a long wait for the sent-article.  (You're asked, in the dialog box, if you want to send a copy to your Amazon archives/library, and I chose Yes, so I could test to see the article arrived on the server.)

  There were times when I thought the process hadn't worked but the articles then suddenly appeared on my Kindle Fire.  With the Google Chrome browser on a Windows PC, I was able to get 4 full articles out of 12 tries, while the other tries resulted in only a LINK to the article on the web! and it's likely a Google-blogger/blogspot.com setting, and a Kindle developer is now trying to solve the problem.

  All this is because bloggers have been invited to use the button and the blog's readers will wonder either why it's not on a site or why it may not work consistently on some Google-owned blogsites while there is a plug-in that works for Wordpress blogs.

  One drawback - Pictures come through if they reside on the same server as the blog text.  My images are hosted on my own server at andrys.com or at Google-web image areas.

  So, although other sendtokindle or sendtoreader programs (described in linked articles at the end of this post) will send the images, that's not always the case with this new feature.

  The large newspaper news sites will host pictures and text on their own servers, so won't see this problem, so I'm recommending you try the feature mainly on the sites that use their own servers for everything.

  The new SendtoKindle dialog box.
  The image here shows the top part of the dialog box you get, when clicking to get an article sent to your Kindle.  It'll ask the first time, whether you want the article via "WiFi (FREE)" or "Whispernet" [3G] for which charges may apply - this used to be $0.15 minimum for file size up to a novel-sized document.
  You can change the settings for target devices at the bottom of the dialog box.

  Oddity - My dialog box of Kindle devices to receive an article did not include my Paperwhite! but did include my Kindle Touch and older e-Ink models.   HOWEVER, the manageyourkindle page shows that the articles at my Cloud-archived personal-docs-library do show a Paperwhite delivery option, so that's just a problem with the Send-to-Kindle dialog box in this case.

Here's today's announcement (bolding emphasis is mine)...

' Initial post: Mar 19, 2013 4:01:51 PM PDT

Kevin G. - Community Manager says:
AMAZON OFFICIAL

Sending web content to Kindle is now easier than ever.

We are excited to announce the "Send to Kindle Button", a convenient new way to send content directly from a website to your Kindle.  Customers can check out the Send to Kindle Button today on The Washington Post, TIME, and the popular blog Boing Boing.

Have you ever encountered news, blogs, articles and other content on the web that you want to read but don't have time to do so immediately?  The Send to Kindle Button lets you easily send that content to your Kindle to read later, at your convenience.  Just send once and read everywhere on any of your Kindle devices or free Kindle reading apps for iPhone, iPad and Android phones or tablets.  No more hunting around for that website or blog that caught your eye - just open your Kindle and all the content you sent is right there.  The Send to Kindle Button is also great for those who want to collect content from the web to use in work projects, school assignments, or hobbies.

The Send to Kindle Button is part of a family of Send to Kindle applications that make it easy for customers to send personal documents and web content to read on their Kindle.  To find out more about other Send to Kindle applications for PC, Mac, Chrome, and Firefox, please visit http://www.amazon.com/sendtokindle.

If you happen to own a website and want to add the Send to Kindle Button, you can get it for free at http://www.amazon.com/gp/sendtokindle/developers/button or at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/send-to-kindle/ for WordPress bloggers. '

They mention at the product page that Send to Kindle for Apple Safari is "coming soon."


Other methods
I just wrote, 8 days ago, on March 11, a blog article on "How to EMAIL Pictures to your Kindle Fire, and Webpages to your Kindle."

  That article lists several ways this has been done -- one has been the 3rd party SendtoReader option, which is able to send web articles from any browser, to your Kindle device (even from your Kindle device's browser), but while very convenient, the method is a bit more arcane than just pressing a button that's been customized by Amazon for individual browsers, as we have here.

  And I listed, in that article, Amazon's own several other methods listed on their more-general SendtoKindle product page.



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-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

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