WHAT SHOULD BE A MODERN BOOKMARK SERVICE?

 

Hi there! 

Today we're going to speak about bookmarks.

If browsers and the Internet itself have evolved very markedly for 20 years, then the bookmark services have not changed fundamentally.

The demise of the rather popular Zootool, Clipboard and Springpad services, as well as the uncertain fate of the main service Delicious raises the question: what is the problem of bookmarking services? Why do almost all of us have the need to make bookmarks, but in fact the use of one service ends up his death and transition to a new one? Let’s try to understand. Let’s start with a story. 

In 2003, Del.icio.us was introduced, which set the standard for similar bookmark services at least 10 years in advance. The service had two features:

1. Tags. The first item singling out Delicious among competitors was the opportunity to mark bookmarks with keywords and visually highlight the most frequent of them in «tag clouds». This «folk» information description system (folksonomy) has become one of the key attributes of the modern web: it is very easy for the user, it really helps to navigate and filter information, and also creates additional links between the content of strangers.

2. Sociality. The second feature became sociality. Now it is possible to subscribe to bookmark updates of other users so as not to miss anything new.

The explosion of interest in Del.icio.us has launched a new round of service evolution to save information in the web.

1. The alternative to classic bookmarks were web clippers, whose task is not to save the addresses of the pages, but directly their content: text, images and videos exactly as they are located on the site: Dragdis, Mammoth, Clipular.

2. Delayed reading services. Another scenario involves sending the same articles and videos to be read and viewed later, preferably on a mobile device. On this ground has grown at least three products, transforming articles into a well-built text without advertising, which is always available to you offline: instapaper, pocket, Readability.

3. Image collection. Another direction of evolution of bookmark services - saving images. At one point in the web began to appear more and more beautiful pictures, and everyone tired of saving them to the hard disk. Similar to Del.icio.us, Vi.sualise.us was available for bookmarking. Then appeared Pinterest and replaced other services.

4. Organizers. The logical continuation of multi tools, combining the functions of cliping and content storage of a variety of formats. Added the ability to create your own notes and download files from the disk. In this way, Evernote and Springpad - for more logocentric users, Iceber.gs, Dropmark and Inboard - for visualization, have actually appeared for several different audiences.

What happened to the classic model of bookmark services - model Del.icio.us, where we just save URL-pages, but not specific content?

At least we can say it is alive, it is in demand and it hasn't evolved yet.

That is, classic bookmark services continue to appear, they continue to be used, but their quality do not change.

The problem of bookmarking services of the classic model is loss of relevance.

There are a lot of bookmark services, but personally I use built-in Google bookmarks.

Simply open the main page in Chrome or in another browser and click on the "new label". Then you can name your label and attach a link to it.

Or there is another quick way to make a bookmark. 

Being on any site, find a little star at the end of the search bar after the name of the link. Click on it and pop up a window. Write the title of the bookmark and everything is ready.