BlinkList

Last April and again in June, I wrote about Yahoo My Web 2.0. At the time, there were 3 things I liked about My Web 2.0:

1. It could automatically save my searches,
2. I had a choice of making each saved page (bookmark) private or shared, and
3. I could organize via tags as opposed to folders (this was a change from My Web 1.0 which I suggested to them).

I now no longer actively use My Web 2.0. After a brief time with Yahoo as my default search engine, I went back to Google, which also allows me to automatically save searches. Ever since I moved to Gmail, I've been interested in using Google services, and Google's search history is one of them.

For bookmarks (links), I now use BlinkList. Here's what I like about it:

1. It's AJAX, as are most of the web services I'm interested in nowadays. Nice human interface. :-)
2. Bookmarks are organized by tags.
   
3. Bookmarks can be private or public. This is essential for me.
4. The main 'my list' screen is well-done. On the right-hand side, I see most recent bookmarks. On the left-hand side are four tabs for looking at tags: Favorite, Popular, Recent, and My Cloud.
5. You can star tags to put them in your Favorites list (note that stars work the same in BlinkList as they do in Gmail), and then star bookmarks to put them at the top of the list of the tag.
   
6. Bookmarking is accomplished most easily by adding the 'Blink It' button to your toolbar. Then when you want to bookmark the site, you're viewing, just blink it. You'll get prompted for tags, and whether you want it private or public; then you'll be returned to the site you were on. As an aside, it's interesting that my browser bookmarks toolbar as turned into a place for bookmarklets (like the 'Blink It' one) and for Firefox live bookmarks.
7. An even simpler way to bookmark is to use the 'Quick Blink' button. There's no info to type in; it automatically assigns the special private Quick Blinks tag. Then you can go back later and re-tag. I starred Quick Blinks so that it shows up in my Favorites list.
   
8. The best part is the new QuickStart page. This creates a neat, tidy page of links you've starred. My QuickStart page has become my new home page. The cool thing is that it dynamically changes to what I currently consider my most important bookmarks.
9. Another important feature is the ability to subscribe to an RSS feed for any of your tags (or one for all your bookmarks). Combined with the Live Bookmarks feature in Firefox, this is a good way to have your most recent bookmarks at your fingertips, right on your toolbar.
   

I've probably left a lot of things out, so if you're interested in having bookmarks easily accessible from any computer, check out BlinkList. Also, if you're interested in sharing bookmarks, BlinkList has many features for this that I haven't gone into. So if you're a friend, let me know.

Categories: bookmarks, tags, search, yahoo