YCNewsers: Help me create better online bookmarking
ninua.wufoo.com
ninua.wufoo.com
Some features that might make me more likely to use social bookmarking: OpenID accounts, really simple and good search, RSS for tags (no doubt this already exists), syncing with my bookmarks on all the browsers I use and aggregating them in one spot, letting me save my bookmarks to a bookmark file readable by Firefox... thats all of the top of my head, although fundamentally I don't think they fit in my life flow :/
http://www.google.com/support/firefox/bin/static.py?page=features.html&v=3
By the way Google does let you also tag (label) the bookmark. It's just that you have to press a different button to do that. Supporting both methods like Google does would work pretty well.
Yes, Google let's you label the bookmarks. However, I was curious about the preference for a flat list that some people seem to like. Would a bookmarking site that doesn't have tags nor folders be something that people would like to use?
With iTunes or thousands of bookmarks, I find that I can't "stumble upon" things anymore - I have to know what I am looking for, so that I can search it. I used to have my music simply organized in folders, and it was so much easier to browse (and still searchable).
Of course the iTunes style allows for new ways of stumbling across music, like "all songs that beginn with the Letter A", but I prefer the "old way" so far.
If I do need to look something up, I usually just Google for it. I'll usually remember at least one phrase from the article, so I'll stick it in quotes and it pops right up.
I'm not one of those people who absolutely must be able to return to anything I've found. I figure that websites - like nearly everything else - are ephemeral, so if I can't remember one, it must not have been very important to begin with.
The scene is pretty crowded and traction will be very difficult unless you have significant differentiator.
Based on my prior experience getting friends/family to use a social bookmarking service , most folks don't use any because organizing bookmarks never gets elevated to problem from a mere inconvenience. They have to shown thats it's really really easy before they become converts. Your trick is going to be how to reach this audience.
I usually go down to the local starbucks (I've even sat outside a large grocery store) to ask my market research questions. It's funny the perspective you gather from non tech folks.
"how is this different from reddit?"
i've been somewhat following this space. i agree there is lots of room for improvement, and i even think it's not saturated yet, that is if you have a flexible definition of a bookmarking application.