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Ask HN: Why haven't bookmarks been re-invented?

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Re: Ask HN: Why haven't bookmarks been re-invented?

#111

Post by mvellandi »

I started converting my bookmarks to Raindrop.io and noticed the following:

- timeless recipes and instructions should rather be saved locally (pdf, mp4)

- research oriented links are better saved in a doc or kms for multi-device and person access.

- travel & outdoors oriented links are sometimes best saved in a map app (especially those allowing you to save notes like “Organic Maps”).

- tech “how-to” links are often not save-worthy when advice is/was easy to find, especially when tech or best practices change.

- organizing many links with folders is really frustrating when categories overlap and you end up duplicating links using extra url parameters (ex: abc.com/#1)

- most things I save only have tags. I use folders for things like account access, car, finance, and health where visible, quick access is important.

- organizing can become a chore and reason to procrastinate on much more of important things in life.

- Naming categories, folders is hard, and I wish Raindrop or other services used word2vec or other tools to improve indexing and search results in case keywords used are insufficient or slightly off

Re: Ask HN: Why haven't bookmarks been re-invented?

#112

Post by everythingabili »

EXACTLY!

Back in the days when "small pieces loosely joined" was a thing, I thought Delicious was very, very cool. (I use Diigo (free) now which is the closest I could find to Delicious when it went bad). I needed something that isn't account dependent and works on web and mobile, so matter where I am browsing content I can save a reference to it. Hypothesis looks interesting but imo is more geared to textual annotation than tagging.

Bookmarks are so bad, that they don't even keep your most recent bookmark in a folder at the top.

But what we lost when we lost Delicious was so much potential. For example...

* people were exploring using tag clouds semanticly, to sort of translate how two different people categorised things (you say "cool", they say "hot" etc)

* I think NASA did collaborative tagging where you merely tag interesting things to keep an eye on with nextYear, fiveYears or TenYears then produced a Horizon Report of the overlaps.

* People were making news readers that found interesting items based on your tag cloud and items adjacent to those tagged in your cloud.

* A tag cloud was a quick "Contents page" for any blog out there... You could glance at one and see if this content was for you.

* They were emergent, as in, they evolved over time - so much better than most peoples' idea of categories, or how categories are used in the real world.

I think that despite all the potential in bookmarking/tagging people weren't ready to pay for it - and if you're the kind of person who squirrels lots of things away for later, in a sensible manner, you're going to find a way to do it somehow.

But bookmarks/tags etc could be so much more.

Re: Ask HN: Why haven't bookmarks been re-invented?

#113

Post by LunarAurora »

everythingabili wrote: post #112

EXACTLY! Back in the days when "small pieces loosely joined" was a thing, I thought Delicious was very, very cool. (I use Diigo (free) now which is the closest I could find to Delicious when it went bad). I needed something that isn't account dependent and works on web and mobile, so matter where I am browsing content I can save a reference to it. Hypothesis looks interesting but imo is more geared to textual annotat…

> collaborative tagging > found interesting items based on your tag cloud and items adjacent to those tagged in your cloud

Pinboard used to allow browsing public bookmarks without account. If you have one (not me) maybe you still can go to any tag [0] or user and explore tag clouds / adjacency.

Are.na [1] allows a similar kind of networked exploration of links (more general collections than tags though). It is really a (self-described) rabbit hole (but without tag clouds)

Zotero [2] does have a tag cloud (local and web). IMO their online groups are underrated for bookmarks/references collaboration/publication . . I love its UI ! It works on mobile too (browser or custom apps)

So alternatives do exist, but the scale and innovation are not there. I hope someday we will go back to an enhanced form of popular tagging, maybe using Semantics (to associate), AI (to generate) and open decentralized protocols (to standardize)

[0] Exple: https://pinboard.in/t:bookmarking

[1] Exple Collection : https://www.are.na/emily-degrandpre/collaborative-knowledge-...

[2] Random public group : https://www.zotero.org/groups/25016/digital_humanities_educa...

Re: Ask HN: Why haven't bookmarks been re-invented?

#114

Post by rcarr »

DevonThink. You can store and organise not only bookmarks, but pdfs, web archives, rss feeds, notes and any other type of file. You can also highlight, annotate and search for connections all in the same place. Has completely changed how I interact with a computer.

Re: Ask HN: Why haven't bookmarks been re-invented?

#115

Post by douge1 »

everythingabili wrote: post #112

EXACTLY! Back in the days when "small pieces loosely joined" was a thing, I thought Delicious was very, very cool. (I use Diigo (free) now which is the closest I could find to Delicious when it went bad). I needed something that isn't account dependent and works on web and mobile, so matter where I am browsing content I can save a reference to it. Hypothesis looks interesting but imo is more geared to textual annotat…

Diigo[0] looks pretty cool.

Love the idea of tag clouds, like I need to capture, "portfolio management systems" and really that's related to stuff like "backtesting tools" and "performance attribution systems", so if there was a knowledge graph connecting all of these terms, that allowed me to explore, in a bit more structured way, than a simple search, would be nice.

[0] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/diigo-web-collecto...

Re: Ask HN: Why haven't bookmarks been re-invented?

#116

Post by amadeuspagel »

I've hidden the bookmarks bar to avoid the temptation to organize my bookmarks. I still make bookmarks, but only because they show up in the address bar when I search for them. I think social media (including github) has mostly replaced the social, collaborative aspect of bookmarking.

Re: Ask HN: Why haven't bookmarks been re-invented?

#117

Post by douge1 »

sdwr wrote: post #100
Centigonal wrote: post #24

for bookmarking articles, you have https://getpocket.com/ and https://www.instapaper.com/ "Social bookmarking" started with deli.co.us and has largely been subsumed by reddit. Beyond some level of complexity, Evernote, Obsidian, Notion, etc become bookmarking tools ...but the ultimate place to find the bookmark managers are in the Chrome and Firefox extension stores: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/extension…

I think there's a fertile middle ground in the triangle between wikipedia, reddit and pinboard.

why wikipedia? I can see reddit + pinboard.

Re: Ask HN: Why haven't bookmarks been re-invented?

#118

Post by douge1 »

mvellandi wrote: post #111

I started converting my bookmarks to Raindrop.io and noticed the following: - timeless recipes and instructions should rather be saved locally (pdf, mp4) - research oriented links are better saved in a doc or kms for multi-device and person access. - travel & outdoors oriented links are sometimes best saved in a map app (especially those allowing you to save notes like “Organic Maps”). - tech “how-to” links are often…

"travel & outdoors" > I do the same thing, Google Maps stars for me.

Re: Ask HN: Why haven't bookmarks been re-invented?

#119

Post by sdwr »

douge1 wrote: post #117
sdwr wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's a fertile middle ground in the triangle between wikipedia, reddit and pinboard.

why wikipedia? I can see reddit + pinboard.

Bookmark as reference page / community cork board. Invert the "feed" structure. Instead of going to r/whatever, see new comments on all of your saved bookmarks.

Can also piggyback off / strangler fig existing website structure. Ex. bookmarks to titles on goodreads.

Add in a similarity graph (people also bookmarked x), and a democratic way to merge bookmarks that point to the same object.

And if you want to get really nutso, add a resource management system where ppl pay for attention - mint bookmarks as NFTs, commenting has a cost, invest in a bookmark to boost global visibility and get a % of commenting cost

Re: Ask HN: Why haven't bookmarks been re-invented?

#120

Post by [deleted] »

sdwr wrote: post #119
douge1 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why wikipedia? I can see reddit + pinboard.

Bookmark as reference page / community cork board. Invert the "feed" structure. Instead of going to r/whatever, see new comments on all of your saved bookmarks. Can also piggyback off / strangler fig existing website structure. Ex. bookmarks to titles on goodreads. Add in a similarity graph (people also bookmarked x), and a democratic way to merge bookmarks that point to the same object. And if you want to get really…

[deleted]
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