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One of the few sites released in the last few years that I actually find useful! Great job team this is really going to help me save content/bookmarks in a more

One of the few sites released in the last few years that I actually find useful! Great job team this is really going to help me save content/bookmarks in a more friendly and searchable manner. I've wanted something like this forever. My only question is.... how are you monetizing it? The browser extension can track my entire browser history. Are you uploading it to your servers?

idleloops 14y ago
I think this is a great question (privacy concerns.) Chrome instills fear into me when it announces that a plugin can gain access to my data (that's an instant put off for me.) I still don't actually get just what data a Chrome plugin has access to.
- michaelbuckbee 14y ago
  Plugins+Extensions are terrifying and awesome simultaneously. When that warning says "all your data on all of your websites" it f'ing means it. Imagine the extension as a person on a computer in a remote location who is looking through every web page that you visit and taking actions on your behalf. Different extensions might: - Look through the content of a page and find things that are likely phone numbers and make them Skype links - Select sections of a page and push their content to a server (ala Clipboard) - Check if you're on a banking site, append an iframe of the site to itself and transfer funds out of your account. It's the web browser equivalent of downloading a program onto your desktop, once it is installed (sandboxing aside) it can do quite a bit.
  - idleloops 14y ago
    That doesn't sound good at all! I guess they can update themselves automatically. Who vets the plugin ecosystem?
gregpascale 14y ago
No - I know the browser extension warning is kind of scary, but we never access your history.
- gregpascale 14y ago
  And if you'd rather not take my word for it, you can use the bookmarklet instead of the extension. It has all the same functionality and runs in a much tighter sandbox.
webwanderings 14y ago
Speaking of monetization...they acquired Clipmarks.com which predates even the defunct Google Notebook (and possibly Digg). Clipmarks.com - although popular among certain crowd - never made it big and had to rely on Ads until they gave up. So I don't see why the Clipboard isn't going the same route. As a former Clipmarks.com user, I have no intention to rely on any such clipping services for the daily curation I do (lately only for myself).
- webwanderings 14y ago
  I told Eric Goldstein (Clipmarks.com) a long time ago that you should run the website like a head editor of a newspaper and not let everyone show whatever they're clipping on the front page of the site. Curation based service sites have a front face which makes or breaks the adoption by those who pass by. If you let your front face show whatever the heck people are clipping (for the sake of democracy and due to popular vote counts, a la Digg), you are letting the perception of your site go to garbage. The perception Pinterest generated proves my point. A visitor should be able to tell what kind of audience hangs out at such curation sites. Pinterest generated a perception of design, aesthetic, shopping etc. Its front page is well curated with a goal. Clipboard doesn't give that impression, and nor does any such clones of Pinterest. I am not defending Pinterest over others (I don't use Pinterest), but people need to realize what they're missing when they run en mass after a successful formula. There are so many such Pinterest-look alike sites showing up lately and besides copying the front page design, none seems to be offering anything of substance, or a reason for anyone to anchor their curations.
  - idleloops 14y ago
    I think this is an interesting point. I'm not sure how you censor your front page. I personally don't really care what's there, but you could quite easily offend, and scare people away from the service.
    - webwanderings 14y ago
      Editing is not censoring.
encoderer 14y ago
I have no idea what they are doing, but i do know this: Uploading your browser history is not exactly a monitization strategy. With an installed extension it would be much, much easier to just inject any ads they want onto any page you visit, or get a sponsor to skin their UI (think Pandora), or put ads in your pin board, or.... If turning amorphous data like browser history into cash was easy, Facebook would be making a lot lot lot more money.

idleloops 14y ago

I think this is a great question (privacy concerns.) Chrome instills fear into me when it announces that a plugin can gain access to my data (that's an instant put off for me.) I still don't actually get just what data a Chrome plugin has access to.

michaelbuckbee 14y ago
Plugins+Extensions are terrifying and awesome simultaneously. When that warning says "all your data on all of your websites" it f'ing means it. Imagine the extension as a person on a computer in a remote location who is looking through every web page that you visit and taking actions on your behalf. Different extensions might: - Look through the content of a page and find things that are likely phone numbers and make them Skype links - Select sections of a page and push their content to a server (ala Clipboard) - Check if you're on a banking site, append an iframe of the site to itself and transfer funds out of your account. It's the web browser equivalent of downloading a program onto your desktop, once it is installed (sandboxing aside) it can do quite a bit.
- idleloops 14y ago
  That doesn't sound good at all! I guess they can update themselves automatically. Who vets the plugin ecosystem?

gregpascale 14y ago

No - I know the browser extension warning is kind of scary, but we never access your history.

gregpascale 14y ago
And if you'd rather not take my word for it, you can use the bookmarklet instead of the extension. It has all the same functionality and runs in a much tighter sandbox.

webwanderings 14y ago

Speaking of monetization...they acquired Clipmarks.com which predates even the defunct Google Notebook (and possibly Digg). Clipmarks.com - although popular among certain crowd - never made it big and had to rely on Ads until they gave up. So I don't see why the Clipboard isn't going the same route. As a former Clipmarks.com user, I have no intention to rely on any such clipping services for the daily curation I do (lately only for myself).

webwanderings 14y ago
I told Eric Goldstein (Clipmarks.com) a long time ago that you should run the website like a head editor of a newspaper and not let everyone show whatever they're clipping on the front page of the site. Curation based service sites have a front face which makes or breaks the adoption by those who pass by. If you let your front face show whatever the heck people are clipping (for the sake of democracy and due to popular vote counts, a la Digg), you are letting the perception of your site go to garbage. The perception Pinterest generated proves my point. A visitor should be able to tell what kind of audience hangs out at such curation sites. Pinterest generated a perception of design, aesthetic, shopping etc. Its front page is well curated with a goal. Clipboard doesn't give that impression, and nor does any such clones of Pinterest. I am not defending Pinterest over others (I don't use Pinterest), but people need to realize what they're missing when they run en mass after a successful formula. There are so many such Pinterest-look alike sites showing up lately and besides copying the front page design, none seems to be offering anything of substance, or a reason for anyone to anchor their curations.
- idleloops 14y ago
  I think this is an interesting point. I'm not sure how you censor your front page. I personally don't really care what's there, but you could quite easily offend, and scare people away from the service.
  - webwanderings 14y ago
    Editing is not censoring.

encoderer 14y ago

I have no idea what they are doing, but i do know this: Uploading your browser history is not exactly a monitization strategy. With an installed extension it would be much, much easier to just inject any ads they want onto any page you visit, or get a sponsor to skin their UI (think Pandora), or put ads in your pin board, or.... If turning amorphous data like browser history into cash was easy, Facebook would be making a lot lot lot more money.