
Show HN: Kozmos – A Personal Library - roadbeats
https://getkozmos.com/
======
roadbeats
Thanks everyone upvoted! It may look like a simple website but I spent a lot
of time on this project :) Besides of programming, I shot that little video
[1] in homepage, it was my first time to do voice-over :)

I created a invite code for HN, so you can sign up without wait;
[https://getkozmos.com/signup?code=HNEWS](https://getkozmos.com/signup?code=HNEWS)

Here is some brief info for HN users. It's built on Go, Elastic Search and
(Pr)eact. The extensions use IndexedDB [2] to create a database [3] that users
read/write, and that database gets synced with Kozmos servers. This makes
Kozmos' like button work consistently, even when Kozmos is down or user has
bad / no connection.

How will Kozmos monetize ? Kozmos will always be free for bookmarking
privately. In the next version, I'll introduce public collections which users
can use for creating nicely organized bookmark collections, and this feature
will be available for only paid users.

For more details, I wrote a blog post;
[https://medium.com/@azerbike/introducing-kozmos-a-new-
bookma...](https://medium.com/@azerbike/introducing-kozmos-a-new-bookmarking-
platform-75f4df448ccc)

Thank you,

Azer

1\.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fs_OOQaJRfQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fs_OOQaJRfQ)

2\. [https://github.com/azer/indexeddb](https://github.com/azer/indexeddb)

3\. [https://github.com/kozmos/likedb](https://github.com/kozmos/likedb)

~~~
btown
How are you doing the classification with ElasticSearch? Are you hardcoding
keywords for different preset categories, such as blogs/music, or are you
doing some kind of machine learning to figure out what each person's relevant
categories are?

~~~
roadbeats
I extract keywords from the meta tags and open graph contents.

~~~
mistermann
Any chance you might add the ability for manual tags? It's a must have for me.

------
atroyn
There are strong critics of free bookmarking sites (@Pinboard in particular).
Their main criticism is that without a revenue model, users will eventually
lose their bookmarks.

What's your plan?

~~~
sondr3
Pinboard isn't free though, you have to pay to even join and start using it.

~~~
arscan
Atroyn is referring to @Pinboard the person, who is critical of free
bookmarking sites and has a history of buying them for cheap when they
eventually fail.

------
iuguy
Not wanting to steal roadbeats' lunch, but as the source isn't available, if
anyone wants a self-hosted solution, Wallabag 2.0 is pretty awesome[1].

[1] - [https://wallabag.org/en](https://wallabag.org/en)

~~~
j_s
Wallabag:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14686882](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14686882)

Bookmarking:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14064096](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14064096)

Tools:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14688496](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14688496)

------
occultist_throw
I first thought it was neat. Personal library, like how Streama is a personal
Netflix. Then I saw it's another service owned and controlled by someone else.

Don't get me wrong, I don't know you, and im not going to assume bad behavior.
But this is a treasure trove of data, and you cannot guarantee that if
acquired, another party wouldn't exploit it. If it were local or on a machine
I controlled, then I could guarantee data security and privacy.

Enough of my life is on the "cloud" controlled by interests that are
different, and sometimes oppositional to mine.

Thank you, but no.

~~~
roadbeats
Kozmos saves your bookmarks into your browser first, then syncs with its
server. And the database it creates in your browser is open source;
[https://github.com/kozmos/likedb](https://github.com/kozmos/likedb)

You can hack it the way you'd like.

~~~
occultist_throw
Like I said, I'm not ascribing any sort of nefarious or dastardly actions by
you. It's more of a gut reaction of the idea of "Cloud everything".

I'd be much more interested in running my own backend, than frontend db. Yeah,
I'm a control freak, I guess. But at least my data stays mine.

~~~
mxuribe
I agree. In fact, i like it when new products/services offer the option to
self-host for free (because code is open source), as well as the option where
I can pay them to host it for me (along with a little included support). In my
mind, companies that don't offer both, sort of get lumped in with the googles,
microsofts, apples, facebooks, snapchats, etc. of the world. Much like other
commentaries, I'm not assuming automatic nefarious behavior, but providing
options like i noted above, sure goes a long way in building confidence and
happy customer relations.

------
michaelmior
> Kozmos will add your browser the button, so you can bookmark easily.

Should be something like "Kozmos will add a button to your browser..."

Also, the onboarding seems buggy. I was asked to add the extension twice and
then got stuck at a loading screen. Having an import feature is nice, but what
format are the files supposed to be in? Just a list of URLs? If so, where do
the names of the bookmarks come from?

Edit: I tried importing an HTML export of my bookmarks from Chrome which
Kozmos seems to try to support. The import fails though with a 500 from the
API and some additional JS errors.

~~~
roadbeats
Hi, I've just tested it, import service works. Would you mind sending your
bookmarks to me and I'll figure out if something in the file makes the service
fails; azer@roadbeats.com

~~~
michaelmior
Unfortunately, I don't think you can say it works when a simple HTML import
fails with no error message and the UI just hangs up. I'm not doubting that it
works for you, but I think the bar for "works" is higher when you're trying to
build a product. Emailed you the file that fails for me and hopefully you'll
be able to find a solution.

~~~
roadbeats
Thank you for sending your bookmarks, haven't received it yet, is it a large
file ?

~~~
michaelmior
No, it's only ~500KB.

~~~
roadbeats
It was a nasty nginx permissions error, thank you so much letting me know so I
solved it.

~~~
michaelmior
It does look like it's working now, although I see the speed shows as "B/MS".
Shouldn't this be "BM/S"? The speed also seems to be useless as it says 336
B/MS but I only have ~1000 bookmarks and I've been sitting on the page for
several minutes.

------
Gys
Seems you will charge for usage in the future ? No mentioning of a free tier ?
No pricing ? I generally do not sign up for anything that is not clear on
that.

~~~
roadbeats
Hi, private bookmarking will always be free. The second phase of Kozmos will
have "public collections", for example, we will be able to create a "Best
Boutique Hotels in Istanbul" collection, and this will be only available for
paid users. This is Kozmos' business model but I haven't explained it in the
site, because collections aren't implemented yet.

------
crookshanked
Is it possible to get a bookmarklet instead of a browser extension?

------
jolmg
Something to note is that keypresses are often ignored in (all?) text fields.
Like, I can't type "google.com" without having to repress at least 2 keys.

EDIT: There's been 2 cases where I've noticed the character is added but then
subsequently deleted in the next instant. Typing faster causes more characters
to go missing, and I have to type like 1 keypress a second to type
"google.com" correctly.

~~~
roadbeats
Are you also a Windows user ? I can't figure out what's wrong as I only got
OSX and Linux. Here is the Preact component I use for Input fields;
[https://gist.github.com/azer/87e6919fc24ad08839e01b1ee3158b4...](https://gist.github.com/azer/87e6919fc24ad08839e01b1ee3158b45)

~~~
jolmg
No, I'm using Archlinux with Firefox 54.

~~~
roadbeats
Oh, I'm also on Arch Linux and have no issues.

------
FelipeCortez
I find it weird how every bookmarking service lacks a high density list format
like how browsers display it. It frustrated me so much I just made my own
[https://felipecortez.net/marks/felipecortez/tag/people+desig...](https://felipecortez.net/marks/felipecortez/tag/people+design/)

------
mattj
This is great - the like / heart button is really slick, and I love how it
doesn't get in the way at all. I've used pinboard and others in the past, and
the (relatively) heavier bookmarking flow would often stop me from saving
things as I didn't want to break my flow.

Excited to see where this ends up!

------
slenk
I didn't see a place where I could actually put in an invite code?

~~~
roadbeats
It's in the sign up form;
[https://getkozmos.com/signup](https://getkozmos.com/signup)

------
raybb
What's your main differentiation from a service like Pocket?

~~~
colecut
First thing that caught me is, pocket doesn't auto-categorize as a free
feature

------
jastanton
I've been tossing around the idea of what a bookmarking solution would look
like that would save a cache of the current page and possibly surrounding
pages. Maybe even have the ability to highlight or make notes on the page
directly. The use case would be bookmarking a page that is later updated and I
was never really sure why I bookmarked it in the first place. Or possibly
bookmarking pages behind a login screen.

~~~
ghthor
Pretty much should be how bookmarks work anyway. The point of bookmarking is
an intention to return. If the site is down or your network fails a bookmarked
page should still work.

------
raybb
Do you plan on offering an API to add links?

~~~
fiatjaf
Stop asking for this kind of thing, please.

~~~
detaro
You really should provide some reasoning if you ask people to not voice their
feature requests on Show HN. (FWIW, not having an API is a dealbreaker for a
bookmarking service in my eyes)

~~~
fiatjaf
The things was launched yesterday by a single person. Of course there will be
an API, but do not ask for one as if it was the most important feature, the
most needed, the most urgent one.

Also, when you ask for an API (I don't know if it was you who asked) you don't
give some reasoning on why you think such feature is needed, so why are you
asking me that?

------
mikojan
Here's an honest to god question: Why are you storing your bookmarks on some
random person's server? From a privacy POV it appears quite questionable, so
what is the upside?

(I never once in my life thought "damn I don't have that exact URL of THING
bookmarked in SPECIFIC DEVICE.)

------
jaytaylor
Beautiful and very seamless slick registration + extension install experience.
You deserve full marks imho!

------
fusiongyro
I'm using fetching.io, which is a paid service, but it also seems like the
work of one guy, and we don't use the same browsers, so I'm ambivalent about
it.

~~~
WhiteOwlLion
I just use WorldBrain (Chrome extension). It is based on Falcon, but you
perform quicksearch (wb keyword) against your history and bookmarks.

------
salpalpable
What's the trick to getting search to work on non-webpages? I couldn't find
any keywords that would pull up PDFs, including elements of their bookmark
name.

------
WhiteOwlLion
Who remembers Starbuck's Kozmo.com that offered free delivery? Burned through
money faster than WebVan!

~~~
demygale
The documentary e-Dreams covers the demise of Kozmo. Highly recommended.

------
holychiz
search seems to need a lot more works. Typeahead would be nice but partial
match is sorely needed, eg. bus should bring up links on business and bus
schedule.

------
rukenshia
just registered and installed the extension. do I always need to go to the
website manually to view my bookmarks or is there a navigation point i'm
missing in the extension?

------
shade23
Can I make a backup and export/import my bookmarks here?

------
mcemilg
The project is great! I think it needs to Machine Learning...

------
exceptione
jfyi: site is broken. Apparently requires third party cookies.

~~~
roadbeats
It has no links to any third party other than Google Analytics.

~~~
exceptione
This is a very strange case.

    
    
      policy                 | outcome
      -----------------------+--------------------
      deny all cookies         BAD white screen
      allow first-party-only   BAD white screen
      allow all cookies        GOOD working site
    
    

I think it has something to do with the embedded youtube video.

