The Perfect Bookmark
We roam the internet like locust during the plague of Egypt, consuming countless amounts of data in any form imaginable. We get over-saturated with images, videos and text, and there simply isn’t enough time in the day to process all of it especially now with our days being shorter by 1.6 microseconds. We don’t have enough resources to process everything we would like the process, and because of this we reach out to web tools.
Can’t ready something now? Oh there is instapaper for that.
Want an easy way of processing a lot of information? Sure, just use Google Reader.
Want to curate your own newspaper based on what your friends are using? Start using paprli or flipboard.
Want to save any of this information? Well here comes the problem with bookmarks. Over the years I’ve been looking for an ultimate solution for my bookmarks, a service which would keep all of them in a visual form. A system with advanced bookmark management system and an easy search functionality, something which would not only allow me to tag my bookmarks but also put them in collections and inspect visually. For the last 3 years my system, however complicated, looked like this:
Favorite bookmarks: Bookmarks bar in a browser.
General bookmarking: Delicious
Products bookmarking: Svpply
Image bookmarking: We heart it
Articles bookmarking: Digg
Links directory with all my social services linked to: Trunkly
Over past week I’ve been looking at my process, realising how ridiculous it is, and thinking that there must be an ultimate bookmarking solution out there, or at least something good. I started talking to some friends and found a question on quora about visual bookmarking , something I needed, a robust visual bookmarking service with some nice functionality. And that’s when I discovered ZooTool among few other services.
Uncertain of it, I tweeted asking the twitterverse about some recommendations regarding the services available, not surprisingly I got a few answers within minutes, and a nice tweet from @zootool themselves. I checked it out closely and started using it. And it’s awesome. ZooTool manages to painlessly combine all the important features of visual bookmarking without making the product suck. I was stricken by a very thoughtful and appleesque GUI and UX which is intuitive and very easy to use. You can bookmark images/videos/websites/documents using a bookmarklet called “Lasso” which you simply place in your bookmarks tab or using a extension available for Chrome, Safari and Firefox.
When you click on the lasso button it takes you to a ZooTool screen which gives you a list of objects on the website and asks you what you want to bookmark.
You can choose to bookmark the entire website or just an image. It then gives you an option to tag, describe and “pack” your bookmark. Awesome. Naturally you can also share it on twitter, facebook or email it.
It’s a simple and intuitive process, it may take a little longer than delicious, but it forces you to do a good job on bookmarking i.e. adding tags, descriptions and choosing what you want to bookmark exactly.
The ZooTool website itself is a work of art. It has a feel of a series A,B,C and D venture backed company with 60 google and Facebook dropouts coding away in a fancy SF loft. Reality is that the whole website was bootstrapped in Germany by two guys. Which makes this whole project even more impressive.
Check is for yourself but in my opinion it’s the ultimate bookmarking service. I could write all about their functionality but the best option is for you to start using it. You won’t regret it.
Positive:
+ Multipurpose visual bookmarking
+ Deep social integration
+ Great UI and UX
+ Import/Export with visual processing
+ Ease of use
+ European !!
Negative:
- Acts funny with certain types of websites
- No screen/website capture
- Lasso favicon is the standard blank page
- No audio capture / audio annotations
RockMelt or lava hot [new] browser
RockMelt is a brand new social web browser built on the open source Chromium. What Browser ? tells us that it’s equivalent of using Google Chrome 6. Having used virtually any web browser out there and being tied to IE6 and Firefox 2.0 at work, RockMelt was a positive surprise to my socially connected and ‘open source’ life. And here is why:
1. Social - RockMelt has very deep integration with both Facebook and Twitter. You log in with your Facebook account and RockMelt pulls all the vital information from your profile and populates the edges and share buttons with options. Same applies to twitter.
2. Edges - right edges displays your Facebook friends and is fully customisable so you can choose which friends you wish to see. Left edge is for apps and RSS feeds, I keep my bookmarking buttons there (digg, delicious) and couple of RSS feeds. Each feed has a little counter in the corner showing you how many unread posts you have. Twitter tells you how many new tweets you have, Facebook gives you the number of new updates and majority of other websites provide a live stream of posts and information.
3. Sharing - Designated status update button for both twitter and Facebook displaying your current Facebook profile photo also acts as a Facebook chat options button, giving you the ability to go offline without actually being on the site. There is also a website sharing button allowing you to send whatever you are currently reading to your favorite social media service. (Only Facebook and twitter are supported, more to come)
4. Search - Unlike your normal search field, RockMelt doesn’t open a new tab with your results, it displays your search results as a drop down over-top the page you are currently on. You can also search for your Facebook friends using the search field.
5. Facebook pop up - upon selecting a someone from the friend edge or search list, RockMelt opens a new pop up window with a simplified profile. Wall, chat and the ability to send them a message or write on their wall. You can do your basic Facebook routine without actually visiting Facebook.
If you love your friends and if you love sharing content online RockMelt is a perfect browser for you. It’s fast, efficient, functional and since it is built on Chromium it supports Google Chrome Extensions. It is simply a more efficient way to browse.
I have 5 invites to give out. We must be friends on Facebook for me to give you an invite so befriend me on Facebook and twitter and let me know !!
