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Why I'm building Nilai - A simple bookmarking service
- zackzackzack 15y agoGlad he mentioned pinboard. idlewords expressed a similar sentiment a few months back. http://blog.pinboard.in/2011/12/don_t_be_a_free_user/ http://blog.pinboard.in/2011/12/don_t_be_a_free_user/ EDIT: Correct user.
- joshu 15y agoYou mean idlewords, perhaps?
- vladimirm 15y agoI checked out the site and while the comps you have there seem nice, I don't see what makes it different from other bookmarking services.
- jroseattle 15y agoFrom the article, it seems the main feature of the service is that it will exist forever -- no sellouts. That is are very big claim to make, indeed. While very well intentioned and honorable, it is very difficult for anyone to say "this will never go away" and be able to back it up in a meaningful way. But good for him, nonetheless. In a time when apps and services are treated as throwaway commodities, his eagerness is refreshing.
- pclark 15y agoeveryone says this
- cdevroe 15y agojroseattle is right, I'm not competing on features. But I assure you that there will be more features than there is today. I'm just getting started. jroseattle: It is tough to say that it will be around forever but that is exactly what I intend to do. I have the means to run the service myself, even without payment, forever. So far there have only been dozens of sign ups. So I'm not too worried about cost yet. And, if it got too pricey I could turn off sign ups. For now my goal is to get enough users so that feedback on how the service should mature comes in steadily. We will take it from there once that happens.
- sidman 15y agoThe name got me straight away, i wondered if it was someone from indonesia who was building it because i recognized the name as having the meaning of "value" in indonesian (as you mentioned) and what do you know ... its close :). Good luck with it, hope it goes well. And salam to your dad from one who also has roots in bandung !
- recroad 15y agoI like that you have aspirations here, but can the developer please provide some points about how this service will be different than the rest in terms of features.
- cdevroe 15y agorecroad I have a roadmap of sorts jotted down. I haven't used Pinboard or the new Delicious to know exactly how they will be different. One feature I'm really excited about is integration with Instapaper in a very seamless and meaningful way. The beta testers I've had using the site seem to like the idea. I hope to finish up that feature soon.
- recroad 15y agoFWIW, I think something like instapaper, delicious/pinboard, evernote, and clipboard, should really be one service. Combine those four for me and you have my money.
- cdevroe 15y agoI think Evernote has a built-in bookmarking and read later service. So perhaps you should give that a whirl?
- mgkimsal 15y agodoes it necessarily need to be different?
- kijin 15y agoTypo on the front page: "intension" should be "intention". You don't want to confuse all those philosophy majors out there :) I'm looking at your screenshot [1] right now, and one question comes to mind: How are users going to organize their bookmarks on Nilai? The drop-down design shown in the screenshot reminds me of Gmail's labels, which will turn into a mess once you go beyond a certain number of tags/categories. Besides, everyone else uses the same organization system and similar features. Why should I try Nilai when I've already paid a one-time fee to Pinboard? Well, here's one possible reason. Just the other day, I was trying to import my browser bookmarks into Pinboard, but aborted when I realized that Pinboard would not preserve the elaborate folder hierarchy (270+ folders) that I'd created over the years to organize my 5600+ bookmarks, many of which I never tagged. If there's any non-social bookmarking service that allows me to use both folders/subfolders and tags/labels to organize my bookmarks, I'll sign up in an instant. This isn't about fancy features, it's about basic paradigms. So there's a little feature request! [1] http://nilai.co/assets/images/screenshot_desktop.jpg http://nilai.co/assets/images/screenshot_desktop.jpg
- cdevroe 15y agoGood question. I can honestly tell you that given your needs, Nilai may never work well for you. I hope you find the exact service you're looking for though.
- kijin 15y agoThanks. I was hoping that a service that claims it will be around in 10 years might also come with features that make it easy for people to import and manage bookmarks from 10 years ago. But it seems that your needs are different.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- twentysix 15y agoWOT gave me a warning on visiting the link but I couldn't find any reason for it to have a poor rating. I wonder what's up with that? https://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/cdevroe.com https://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/cdevroe.com
- narad 15y ago"... cool to name the service an Indonesian word. Nilai is pronounced (as best as I can tell) Nee’-lie. It is an Indonesian word meaning mark." Nilai means "a place" in Tamil, a language in South India. It has also many meanings. http://tamil.indiandictionaries.com/meaning.php?id=12587&lang=Tamil http://tamil.indiandictionaries.com/meaning.php?id=12587&...
- bearwithclaws 15y agoNilai is the name of a town not far from (an hour drive) where I'm staying: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nilai http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nilai In Malay, it means "value/worth".
- scrod 15y agoUnless my bookmarks can be encrypted client-side, I will probably never switch to your service.
- rvrv 15y agoVery simple system. It's so simple you dont even need to use any credentials on login page. Just click login and you ready to go :-)
- cdevroe 15y agorvrv: I've double-checked this claim and I haven't been able to replicate the issue. I would love any suggestions on how to replicate this as well as suggestions on how to button it up. Thanks for finding it!
- rvrv 15y agoHmm. Maybe it is intended behavior or i just do something wrong but my way to replicate this is open http://nilai.co/ http://nilai.co/ and simply click login button without entering anything in login form fields. When i do that i click "Your Marks" and then Archive i i can see sth like this: http://imgur.com/93L5J http://imgur.com/93L5J Best regards.
- rvrv 15y agoIn other way... login: Email password: xxxxxxx Its open account :-) I think You should gimme free account for this bug submiting :)
- jonespen 15y agoProtip: Put class "btn btn-primary" on the login button. Ref http://twitter.github.com/bootstrap/base-css.html#buttons http://twitter.github.com/bootstrap/base-css.html#buttons
- cdevroe 15y agojonespen: It will be in today's release! Thanks. :)
- toadi 15y agoHe mentions pinboard. the idea of pinboard is the same: no free users. So we have more trust in this service sticking around for the long haul. Also it's simple. Maybe he should make a small table first listing the differentiating facts between his service and Delicious and Pinboard. It's just not clear and I fear he will scratch his itch alone...
- cdevroe 15y agotoadi: I understand your concern. And it is valid. I totally plan on scratching my own itch and I hope that my itches align with other's itches. But, I'm also excepting as many suggestions as anyone cares to give. Maybe you could come back to Nilai in a few months, see where it is, and if it fits.
- jarofgreen 15y agoWhy not go Open Source? It's just that you repeatedly mention that your main aim is to have a service that will last for ever; but there's nothing different in your service (apart from your intentions) that will guarantee that. Basically, your asking people to trust you on that one. But if it was Open Source, with good import/export features, then if it was threatened by closure people could just move their data to another service using the same software (techy ppl could even run their own server). I'm sure there are already open source bookmarking services; why not just help one of those instead of reinventing the wheel? Of course, the business model for making money from Open Source is completely different. But from your stated intentions, that's not your aim.
- mitechie 15y agohttps://github.com/mitechie/Bookie https://github.com/mitechie/Bookie
- cdevroe 15y agojarofgreen: I've thought a lot about this. I'm a big proponent of open source. And I intend to giving a lot of thought to open sourcing Nilai sometime in the future - just so that (as you put it) "techie people" can run their own servers if they want. However, I think running the service is where the value really is. If someone is techie enough to grab an open source project, install it on their own server, and keep it running - I have little doubt that they could build Nilai. In fact, they can probably build it better than I can. That being said, I do hope that Nilai will turn a profit. I'm charging such a small cost that I obviously do not intend to get rich off of Nilai but I wouldn't mind it running in the black rather than in the red. Perhaps you could give mittechie's Bookie a spin? https://github.com/mitechie/Bookie https://github.com/mitechie/Bookie - I think it looks pretty good.
- jarofgreen 15y ago> It's just that you repeatedly mention that your main aim is to have a service that will last for ever; but there's nothing different in your service (apart from your intentions) that will guarantee that. Basically, your asking people to trust you on that one. You didn't answer this point; and honestly I don't mean to offend you or imply your intentions are suspect - I don't know you at all, so I can't judge. But that's exactly the problem - how do you persuade ppl like me to trust you? Compare the situation to wordpress.com vs blogger/tumblr/closed-source-blog-platform. I always look to the former first because I know it's so easy for me to move my blog onto one of many wordpress-supporting hosts or my own server if I need to, and thus I feel the longeveity of my site is guaranteed much more. You could be in the same situation, if you Open Source it and several people ran your software as a host. That would make it easy for users to switch - and then you have a much better and practical guarantee for users that it will stick around in some form. Anyway, last comment I'll make as obviously it's your choice in the end; but that's what I think. And I do need to look at an Open Source bookmarking service soon :-)
- redguava 15y agoI am too distracted by the N in your logo looking like a Z on it's side. Is that intentional?
- cdevroe 15y agoNot intentional - I'm simply not a designer. Maybe someone would like to submit a better logo?
- cdevroe 15y agoJust an FYI for anyone still tracking this discussion. Today I released Smart Labels http://cdevroe.com/notes/nilai-smartlabels/ http://cdevroe.com/notes/nilai-smartlabels/