links for 2006-02-28
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Free tool that creates ISO files out of directories. Also includes a command line version of the utility.
I’m on an informatics kick lately. I’m working on a new PIM system that I’ll proably blog about soon but I’ve also been thinking about bookmarking. I am a compulsive bookmarker. I save almost everything. And most of the time I save it more than once depending on what it is because there’s not a single bookmark service that provides everything that I need. So I’m going to ask for one today!
If you’re a developer out there that wants an idea to work on to build the better bookmarking site, this post is for you!! If you’re a bookmarking service user like me, and you have suggestions for features that I didn’t ask for, please leave a comment! Hopefully someone will take a hint and build the ulitimate bookmark service and everyone will be so happy that all the world’s problems will be solved and we’ll live in peace forever after. Well, maybe not. But a better service would be nice.
Listed to avoid forgetting the obvious, these are features/abilities that already exist in many if not all of the services out there right now.
These are abilities and features that are either not as common, or that I’ve seen in some services but not others. Here’s where some differentiation begins.
Here’s where your new service will stand out from the pack (and it’s a large pack!)… These features are either rare or I have never seen anywhere. Offer these and you will have the edge on all the other services out there.
Anyone got any other great ideas? I’ll update this list as people suggest things that I like! And if someone out there decides to build this PLEASE, for goodness sake, let me be an alpha/beta tester!!
I have spent much time and looking for the perfect (at least for me) online bookmark archive and I still haven’t found it.
I received a beta invite to Ma.gnolia a few weeks ago and tried it out. My initial response was the same as Pete’s:
“So yes, it’s a good effort - but also a completely unimaginative one. ”
Ma.gnolia just doesn’t offer (at least yet) a lot to compel me to switch from the two main services that I already use the most (Del.icio.us and Furl).
But maybe there is some hope for Ma.gnolia.
Since I already know what I’m looking for in a bookmarking site, it didn’t take that long for me to check for some things and then send their tech support a pretty long email with questions and suggestions. A representative named Todd replied and his response was friendly. He seemd to genuinely appreciate the feedback and sounded like their team might actually take some of my recommendations into consideration. We’ll have to wait and see. I’m not ready to make the move yet until I see some innovation.
Ma.gnolia reminds me of Furl with tags instead of “topics” (folders). I give them major props for saving a private copy of the pages you bookmark, but that seems to be the main feature it offers that other services don’t (besides Furl and Clipmarks).
It’s not really designed for info-discovery, which is what Del.icio.us does a good job with. I think some of those info-discovery features are there, but they’re not promoted very well:
And my other beef (after asking in email) is that they aren’t planning on offering a browser toolbar like Furl (which is nice because it has a search bar right on it) or Clipmarks (which lets you choose parts of the page to save). The explanation was that toolbars aren’t available to everyone and they are often targets for hacks and exploits. While that may be true, they are also potentially incredibly useful depending on what you do with them and would be another thing to make Ma.gnolia’s service stand out from the pack. As for the bookmarklet that’s available to capture bookmarklets, there’s no innovation there either. You get can’t even really be put in a pop-up window like I prefer because the page isn’t laid out compactly so you have to scroll a lot to get to the entry fields and tags.
It’s unfortunate since I was really hoping there’d be more to set Ma.gnolia apart. Maybe now that they’re getting beta feedback their developers will try to add some more innovative features instead of just trying to depend on the fact that their site looks nice to entice people in. I’ll keep watching and hope it will continue to evolve.