9 ms·

Bookmarking is more complex than you think

rhizome 13y ago
One-upmanship right in the title, it would have been more accurate to say, "...than I thought." Bookmarking is a productivity aid, and so has the same variations in personal (customer, user) needs as the dozens of todo list apps and websites can attest.
- saraid216 13y ago
  The correct word to prefix "is harder than you think" is always "humility".
DotSauce 13y ago
Pocket covers nearly all of the requests you posted from HN; cross-device compatible, Pinterest style layout, export to html, search, tagging & sharing. I'm really enjoying it as a private bookmarking service. http://GetPocket.com http://GetPocket.com
webwanderings 13y ago
It isn't difficult at all. You just have to shift your perspective. Now: Keep them in your browser, local to you. Keep the frequently-used ones right in front of you in the bookmark toolbar. For example, I don't rely on Chrome's Apps tab, so I have Gmail in my bookmarks toolbar folder called 1.Launch (1 because I have several others sorted accordingly). Later: Link blog them (on Tumblr or G+ may be). Or you can even keep them local to you using above number 1 perspective. Future: Don't worry about loosing the bookmarks you have already consumed and not going to come back to them anytime soon. Again, if you're link-blogging the content you feel you need to save, than you don't need to worry about future.
- Trufa 13y ago
  That is neither easy nor a solution.
  - webwanderings 13y ago
    If it works for me then it is a solution, isn't it? As I said, it requires you shift the perspective. Bookmarking-on-the-server is an over rated phenomenon. People can keep the URLs locally to themselves.
    - ThomPete 13y ago
      It's a solution for you yes. That's not the point of the article.
    - Trufa 13y ago
      I have no issues against you using your method, I'm glad it works for you, but I can't see how this could possibly help the majority of of people. > Now: Keep them in your browser, local to you. What do you mean by local, I wanted them synced with my phone and my three other computers, but I may have misunderstood you. > Keep the frequently-used ones right in front of you in the bookmark toolbar. How often do I have to rearrange them? Or delete them? Or send them to the later? Or should I just keep adding them to the toolbar until they naturally disappear and create an endless mess of unsorted bookmarks? > Later: Link blog them (on Tumblr or G+ may be). Or you can even keep them local to you using above number 1 perspective. Why would I, it seems so much more trouble? I'd rather bookmark them in a folder named later. > Future: Don't worry about loosing the bookmarks you have already consumed and not going to come back to them anytime soon. Again, if you're link-blogging the content you feel you need to save, than you don't need to worry about future. This is the one I disagree the most! This isn't a shift in perspective, it's ignoring the problem, I go back to my bookmarks months (years?) after I've booked marked them, and I'm happy to find them. --- Honestly I manage my bookmarks pretty well with chrome now-a-days specially with the built in sync system, I'm very happy I don't have to worry about sync anymore, I even have them in my phone all the time. What honestly I think is missing is better search, you can only search by title or URL as it is. The URL of an old enough one is virtually impossible to remember and the title so many times doesn't help much either, you might not remember it or it might be a smart ass title that is not a good description of the topic in question, so many times I end up finding it quicker in Google by inputting the text I remember rather that going through my bookmarks, since I tend to remember the essence of the article. I think labels would also help since an hierarchical organization that would actually help would be insane, I'd rather write a couple of words referring to the article, but the truth is most of the times I can be bothered. So yes, I agree with the author, it is not an easy problem.
ThomPete 13y ago
Interestingly I had that exact discussion with some friends yesterday too. I normally divide it up a little different. 1. The things I want to save for possible use later. 2. The things I need for something specific but only once. 3. The things that I want to read later. 4. The things that I use now and then or often but can never remember the url for. The last of the four to me is the one most often overlooked and is why I still haven't found a tool I like. Things that fall into that category is. My netbank, internal links, insurance site, things I am a member of, online tools, asset libraries that I use often etc. The best analogy I have been able to come up with so far is a desktop/launchpad for the browser and it might be exactly that way of thinking about bookmarks that will make someone come up with a good enough solution one day.
- ntoshev 13y ago
  My favorite for #4 is Google's +1. You need a Google Plus account. +1 is like Facebook like, only it boosts the ranking of that link whenever you are logged in and search. Not every page has a +1 button, but there is a chrome plugin for that. Side effect: the links you +1 are boosted for your G+ friends too, so the bookmarks are sort of public.
  - reddit_clone 13y ago
    Not gonna work for me. First thing I do after installing a browser is to install ghostery and disable all the social buttons. Also, wouldn't you be exposing yourself to spam from all the sites you +1 ?
    - tomkarlo 13y ago
      I could be wrong here, but I don't think you get inbound posts in your G+ stream (or email) from +1s, unlike FB "Likes" which give the owner the ability to post to your New Feed. On G+ you have to go and explicitly "Circle" a business / web site to see their posts.
  - ThomPete 13y ago
    Yeah what I want is a cluster of links that is always "floating" no matter how i tagged them and no matter how long it's been since I bookmarked them. So +1 doesn't really work since I want to tag them #LinksINeedNowwAndThenButAlways
cl8ton 13y ago
Another problem I always had with bookmarking websites was my lists would grow too long and interesting bookmarks would get lost in the mess without pruning them. So I created a website 2 years ago that constantly visits the URL and lets me know whats changing on the website the bookmark is pointing to and emails me the deltas. Not trying to hijack the OP’s thread but if interested , visit diphur.com
halgir 13y ago
I'm using the open-source Zotero for organizing my research. I imagine it would work well as a bookmarking tool. http://www.zotero.org/ http://www.zotero.org/
dsubhankar 13y ago
Superb explanation !
greyman 13y ago
Like the author of the article, I also use more than one service for bookmarking - Pocket for Read later articles, Google bookmarks for tagged bookmarks for unspecified future use, and toolbar in Chrome for all other. But I don't agree with the notion that it is overly complex, or that I want to consolidate all this to one service.
Quai 13y ago
After reading the article, I still dont see what you mean by complex. I saw a wishlist of things that might or might not be related to bookmarking. Storing a URL, how ever, is more complex that you would think. There are no size limit on urls, so every time update your database schema (I know, SO '90), a longer URL will show up. Short story; Ive worked on a bookmark service. One day, the database went all crazy on us, and we didn't know why. The commit logs kept growing, and the service was slow. The system pushed more data than normal, but all user metrics show normal usage. We spent some hours debugging this, until a guy poped by our office and asked "Have you seen google's new favicon?! It looks like a toilet seat!". Then it hit us; We where storing a copy of favicon with each bookmark; suddenly half the bookmarks in our database got updated.. ;) Next time, I'll tell you about that porn site that used the full size images as favicons..
bravura 13y ago
Is there an open-source library for archiving a URL, including all assets (JS, graphics, etc.)? This task is trickier than it initially seems. I'd love to have a local cache of bookmarked URLs.
- pbreit 13y ago
  If you don't mind free but closed source, Evernote.
- redidas 13y ago
  What about browser -> save as -> save as type "Website, complete"? Not really a library, and not really something you could do retro-actively to urls already bookmarked without revisiting the pages, but it sort of works. Regarding a library for archiving a URL - it'd be interesting if there were a way to save a url by inline css and javascript in the html, and converting images and other assets to data urls.
- smacktoward 13y ago
  HTTrack (http://www.httrack.com/ http://www.httrack.com/), maybe...
- icebraining 13y ago
  Wget can do it, with variable success. I thought about building one in PhantomJS, since it seems it can extract all the required assets, but gave up on it since most of the content I care about is in my RSS archive anyway.
  - notaddicted 13y ago
    Wget is good if you have the right options (http://psung.blogspot.com/2008/06/using-wget-or-curl-to-download-web.html http://psung.blogspot.com/2008/06/using-wget-or-curl-to-down...). For some audio/video sites there is youtube-dl, there is a list of sites it handles here: http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/documentation.html http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/documentation.html . EDIT: there is a writeup about that is partially based on wget here: http://www.gwern.net/Archiving%20URLs#local-caching http://www.gwern.net/Archiving%20URLs#local-caching (also includes extracting URL from firefox history) EDIT2: and if you're really desperate you could always use tcpdump/mitmdump and something like this: http://justniffer.sourceforge.net/#!/justniffer_grab_http_traffic http://justniffer.sourceforge.net/#!/justniffer_grab_http_tr...
enra 13y ago
It's complex, or like with project management, there seems to be so many different use cases, and also legacy ideas and workflows. For example for some people tags are the most important thing in a bookmarking service (even you when you have a full-text search for everything), and for some they're just annoying. What I think about it, is that bookmarking, most of the time, isn't bookmarking anymore. It used to be that to bookmarked a site like "yahoo.com" to your browser since domains were hard to remember. Now you "bookmark" things, like the OP described, to use the them now or later. Also most of the time you care more about the content (article, image, video) than the url or the site. What I think bookmarking is, is that it's a way to research, use and understand information on the web. Why I collect or bookmarks stuff, is because it's my way to learn and remember. It's like making notes on lectures, so you actually try to pay attention to what it's being said (and sometimes you just want to focus on other things and save things for later.) (we're working on it https://kippt.com https://kippt.com)
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
frenchy 13y ago
Am I the only one here that is quite satisfied with the bookmarking system in my web browser?
nano111 13y ago
most currently existing bookmarking services support tags... you could use "now", "later" or "future" tags?
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

One-upmanship right in the title, it would have been more accurate to say, "...than I thought." Bookmarking is a productivity aid, and so has the same variations in personal (customer, user) needs as the dozens of todo list apps and websites can attest.

saraid216 13y ago
The correct word to prefix "is harder than you think" is always "humility".

DotSauce 13y ago

Pocket covers nearly all of the requests you posted from HN; cross-device compatible, Pinterest style layout, export to html, search, tagging & sharing. I'm really enjoying it as a private bookmarking service. http://GetPocket.com http://GetPocket.com

webwanderings 13y ago

It isn't difficult at all. You just have to shift your perspective. Now: Keep them in your browser, local to you. Keep the frequently-used ones right in front of you in the bookmark toolbar. For example, I don't rely on Chrome's Apps tab, so I have Gmail in my bookmarks toolbar folder called 1.Launch (1 because I have several others sorted accordingly). Later: Link blog them (on Tumblr or G+ may be). Or you can even keep them local to you using above number 1 perspective. Future: Don't worry about loosing the bookmarks you have already consumed and not going to come back to them anytime soon. Again, if you're link-blogging the content you feel you need to save, than you don't need to worry about future.

Trufa 13y ago
That is neither easy nor a solution.
- webwanderings 13y ago
  If it works for me then it is a solution, isn't it? As I said, it requires you shift the perspective. Bookmarking-on-the-server is an over rated phenomenon. People can keep the URLs locally to themselves.
  - ThomPete 13y ago
    It's a solution for you yes. That's not the point of the article.
  - Trufa 13y ago
    I have no issues against you using your method, I'm glad it works for you, but I can't see how this could possibly help the majority of of people. > Now: Keep them in your browser, local to you. What do you mean by local, I wanted them synced with my phone and my three other computers, but I may have misunderstood you. > Keep the frequently-used ones right in front of you in the bookmark toolbar. How often do I have to rearrange them? Or delete them? Or send them to the later? Or should I just keep adding them to the toolbar until they naturally disappear and create an endless mess of unsorted bookmarks? > Later: Link blog them (on Tumblr or G+ may be). Or you can even keep them local to you using above number 1 perspective. Why would I, it seems so much more trouble? I'd rather bookmark them in a folder named later. > Future: Don't worry about loosing the bookmarks you have already consumed and not going to come back to them anytime soon. Again, if you're link-blogging the content you feel you need to save, than you don't need to worry about future. This is the one I disagree the most! This isn't a shift in perspective, it's ignoring the problem, I go back to my bookmarks months (years?) after I've booked marked them, and I'm happy to find them. --- Honestly I manage my bookmarks pretty well with chrome now-a-days specially with the built in sync system, I'm very happy I don't have to worry about sync anymore, I even have them in my phone all the time. What honestly I think is missing is better search, you can only search by title or URL as it is. The URL of an old enough one is virtually impossible to remember and the title so many times doesn't help much either, you might not remember it or it might be a smart ass title that is not a good description of the topic in question, so many times I end up finding it quicker in Google by inputting the text I remember rather that going through my bookmarks, since I tend to remember the essence of the article. I think labels would also help since an hierarchical organization that would actually help would be insane, I'd rather write a couple of words referring to the article, but the truth is most of the times I can be bothered. So yes, I agree with the author, it is not an easy problem.

ThomPete 13y ago

Interestingly I had that exact discussion with some friends yesterday too. I normally divide it up a little different. 1. The things I want to save for possible use later. 2. The things I need for something specific but only once. 3. The things that I want to read later. 4. The things that I use now and then or often but can never remember the url for. The last of the four to me is the one most often overlooked and is why I still haven't found a tool I like. Things that fall into that category is. My netbank, internal links, insurance site, things I am a member of, online tools, asset libraries that I use often etc. The best analogy I have been able to come up with so far is a desktop/launchpad for the browser and it might be exactly that way of thinking about bookmarks that will make someone come up with a good enough solution one day.

ntoshev 13y ago
My favorite for #4 is Google's +1. You need a Google Plus account. +1 is like Facebook like, only it boosts the ranking of that link whenever you are logged in and search. Not every page has a +1 button, but there is a chrome plugin for that. Side effect: the links you +1 are boosted for your G+ friends too, so the bookmarks are sort of public.
- reddit_clone 13y ago
  Not gonna work for me. First thing I do after installing a browser is to install ghostery and disable all the social buttons. Also, wouldn't you be exposing yourself to spam from all the sites you +1 ?
  - tomkarlo 13y ago
    I could be wrong here, but I don't think you get inbound posts in your G+ stream (or email) from +1s, unlike FB "Likes" which give the owner the ability to post to your New Feed. On G+ you have to go and explicitly "Circle" a business / web site to see their posts.
- ThomPete 13y ago
  Yeah what I want is a cluster of links that is always "floating" no matter how i tagged them and no matter how long it's been since I bookmarked them. So +1 doesn't really work since I want to tag them #LinksINeedNowwAndThenButAlways

cl8ton 13y ago

Another problem I always had with bookmarking websites was my lists would grow too long and interesting bookmarks would get lost in the mess without pruning them. So I created a website 2 years ago that constantly visits the URL and lets me know whats changing on the website the bookmark is pointing to and emails me the deltas. Not trying to hijack the OP’s thread but if interested , visit diphur.com

halgir 13y ago

I'm using the open-source Zotero for organizing my research. I imagine it would work well as a bookmarking tool. http://www.zotero.org/ http://www.zotero.org/

dsubhankar 13y ago

Superb explanation !

greyman 13y ago

Like the author of the article, I also use more than one service for bookmarking - Pocket for Read later articles, Google bookmarks for tagged bookmarks for unspecified future use, and toolbar in Chrome for all other. But I don't agree with the notion that it is overly complex, or that I want to consolidate all this to one service.

Quai 13y ago

After reading the article, I still dont see what you mean by complex. I saw a wishlist of things that might or might not be related to bookmarking. Storing a URL, how ever, is more complex that you would think. There are no size limit on urls, so every time update your database schema (I know, SO '90), a longer URL will show up. Short story; Ive worked on a bookmark service. One day, the database went all crazy on us, and we didn't know why. The commit logs kept growing, and the service was slow. The system pushed more data than normal, but all user metrics show normal usage. We spent some hours debugging this, until a guy poped by our office and asked "Have you seen google's new favicon?! It looks like a toilet seat!". Then it hit us; We where storing a copy of favicon with each bookmark; suddenly half the bookmarks in our database got updated.. ;) Next time, I'll tell you about that porn site that used the full size images as favicons..

bravura 13y ago

Is there an open-source library for archiving a URL, including all assets (JS, graphics, etc.)? This task is trickier than it initially seems. I'd love to have a local cache of bookmarked URLs.

pbreit 13y ago
If you don't mind free but closed source, Evernote.
redidas 13y ago
What about browser -> save as -> save as type "Website, complete"? Not really a library, and not really something you could do retro-actively to urls already bookmarked without revisiting the pages, but it sort of works. Regarding a library for archiving a URL - it'd be interesting if there were a way to save a url by inline css and javascript in the html, and converting images and other assets to data urls.
smacktoward 13y ago
HTTrack (http://www.httrack.com/ http://www.httrack.com/), maybe...
icebraining 13y ago
Wget can do it, with variable success. I thought about building one in PhantomJS, since it seems it can extract all the required assets, but gave up on it since most of the content I care about is in my RSS archive anyway.
- notaddicted 13y ago
  Wget is good if you have the right options (http://psung.blogspot.com/2008/06/using-wget-or-curl-to-download-web.html http://psung.blogspot.com/2008/06/using-wget-or-curl-to-down...). For some audio/video sites there is youtube-dl, there is a list of sites it handles here: http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/documentation.html http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/documentation.html . EDIT: there is a writeup about that is partially based on wget here: http://www.gwern.net/Archiving%20URLs#local-caching http://www.gwern.net/Archiving%20URLs#local-caching (also includes extracting URL from firefox history) EDIT2: and if you're really desperate you could always use tcpdump/mitmdump and something like this: http://justniffer.sourceforge.net/#!/justniffer_grab_http_traffic http://justniffer.sourceforge.net/#!/justniffer_grab_http_tr...

enra 13y ago

It's complex, or like with project management, there seems to be so many different use cases, and also legacy ideas and workflows. For example for some people tags are the most important thing in a bookmarking service (even you when you have a full-text search for everything), and for some they're just annoying. What I think about it, is that bookmarking, most of the time, isn't bookmarking anymore. It used to be that to bookmarked a site like "yahoo.com" to your browser since domains were hard to remember. Now you "bookmark" things, like the OP described, to use the them now or later. Also most of the time you care more about the content (article, image, video) than the url or the site. What I think bookmarking is, is that it's a way to research, use and understand information on the web. Why I collect or bookmarks stuff, is because it's my way to learn and remember. It's like making notes on lectures, so you actually try to pay attention to what it's being said (and sometimes you just want to focus on other things and save things for later.) (we're working on it https://kippt.com https://kippt.com)

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

frenchy 13y ago

Am I the only one here that is quite satisfied with the bookmarking system in my web browser?

nano111 13y ago

most currently existing bookmarking services support tags... you could use "now", "later" or "future" tags?

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]