Yahoo! Bookmarks — the social bookmarking alternative
Okay, so I cheated a little with that headline, since Yahoo! Bookmarks is not specifically intended to a be a social bookmarking tool. According to a post from October 24, 2006, on the Yahoo! Search Blog, this responsibility will always belong to del.icio.us. However, for those of us looking to better save, organize, and import bookmarks into traditional folders (with a Web 2.0 touch), then you definitely need to consider Yahoo! Bookmarks.
I realize the new Yahoo! Bookmarks is now a year old, and there are long time users of Furl and Spurl who swear by those bookmarking services instead. However, I find the simple, unfettered design of Yahoo! Bookmarks to be exactly what I need. Disinterested in rating, sharing, or discovering, I really do just need a bookmarking Web application that I can get at from anywhere, and that includes a complimentary toolbar for quick access while browsing. Most of all, I need any easy way to categorize and sub-categorize my bookmarks.
As simple as that last feature sounds, it is completely lacking, or lacking finesse in the majority of bookmarking applications. Sure, you can create, organize, and bundle tags, but the ability to design and create a usable folder tree is visibly present in Yahoo! Bookmarks. This capability might be considered primitive by obsessive taggers, but it is surprisingly intuitive. The service appears to garner a small following, claiming 20 million active users according to a Techcrunch article posted on the new Yahoo! Bookmarks date of launch.
If you are considering a social bookmarking alternative, and you think Yahoo! Bookmarks might be the right choice, then I invite you to check out a screencast by Tom Chi. You can also read up on the Yahoo! Bookmarks help section, which gives a good overview of migration, basics, saving, finding, sharing, and managing bookmarks and folders.
Posted by Brian
November 8th, 2007
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3 Comments
#01, Nov 08 2007
Mihai Campean
Have you tried the Google Browser Sync extension for Firefox? It allows you to store your bookmarks on your google account (encrypted and everything) , and not only your bookmarks, and it keeps them in sync with all your computers that have the extension installed. I have been using this extension for almost a year and it is all I need. I keep my bookmarks categorized in Firefox and I can have access at them from anywhere just by adding the extension to Firefox (if working on a different computer). This has also the nice advantage of keeping your RSS feeds in sync also, since most Firefox RSS readers use the bookmarks functionality to store the feeds.
#02, Nov 08 2007
Brian
Hey Mihai,
I have heard of that, but I haven’t tried it yet. It could be I’m too lazy to sync, but I have a laptop, my work computer, and then sometimes when I’m on other computers I want access to bookmarks. That is why I like a Web based interface instead of a browser based. A lot of developers who have used the sync extension do seem to like it though.
#03, Nov 11 2007
Mihai Campean
Yep, it is a nice tool, but a web based interface is also useful, so it depends on what you aim for. The nicest thing would be if some of the web bookmarking tools or even google themselves would support web access to the browser sync storage, then we would have both: the browser sync on the computers we use and a web interface to be able to access the bookmarks from other pc’s where you don’t want to install the browser extension or do not have rights to do so.