
Bookmarking is more complex than you think - danielfernandez
http://dfernandez.me/articles/5_Bookmarking_is_much_more_complex_than_you_think/
======
enra
It's complex, or like with project management, there seems to be so many
different use cases, and also legacy ideas and workflows. For example for some
people tags are the most important thing in a bookmarking service (even you
when you have a full-text search for everything), and for some they're just
annoying.

What I think about it, is that bookmarking, most of the time, isn't
bookmarking anymore. It used to be that to bookmarked a site like "yahoo.com"
to your browser since domains were hard to remember. Now you "bookmark"
things, like the OP described, to use the them now or later.

Also most of the time you care more about the content (article, image, video)
than the url or the site. What I think bookmarking is, is that it's a way to
research, use and understand information on the web.

Why I collect or bookmarks stuff, is because it's my way to learn and
remember. It's like making notes on lectures, so you actually try to pay
attention to what it's being said (and sometimes you just want to focus on
other things and save things for later.)

(we're working on it <https://kippt.com>)

------
Quai
After reading the article, I still dont see what you mean by complex. I saw a
wishlist of things that might or might not be related to bookmarking.

Storing a URL, how ever, is more complex that you would think. There are no
size limit on urls, so every time update your database schema (I know, SO
'90), a longer URL will show up.

Short story; Ive worked on a bookmark service. One day, the database went all
crazy on us, and we didn't know why. The commit logs kept growing, and the
service was slow. The system pushed more data than normal, but all user
metrics show normal usage. We spent some hours debugging this, until a guy
poped by our office and asked "Have you seen google's new favicon?! It looks
like a toilet seat!".

Then it hit us; We where storing a copy of favicon with each bookmark;
suddenly half the bookmarks in our database got updated.. ;)

Next time, I'll tell you about that porn site that used the full size images
as favicons..

------
bravura
Is there an open-source library for archiving a URL, including all assets (JS,
graphics, etc.)?

This task is trickier than it initially seems.

I'd love to have a local cache of bookmarked URLs.

~~~
icebraining
Wget can do it, with variable success.

I thought about building one in PhantomJS, since it seems it can extract all
the required assets, but gave up on it since most of the content I care about
is in my RSS archive anyway.

~~~
notaddicted
Wget is good if you have the right options
([http://psung.blogspot.com/2008/06/using-wget-or-curl-to-
down...](http://psung.blogspot.com/2008/06/using-wget-or-curl-to-download-
web.html)).

For some audio/video sites there is youtube-dl, there is a list of sites it
handles here: <http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/documentation.html> .

EDIT: there is a writeup about that is partially based on wget here:
<http://www.gwern.net/Archiving%20URLs#local-caching> (also includes
extracting URL from firefox history)

EDIT2: and if you're really desperate you could always use tcpdump/mitmdump
and something like this:
[http://justniffer.sourceforge.net/#!/justniffer_grab_http_tr...](http://justniffer.sourceforge.net/#!/justniffer_grab_http_traffic)

------
rhizome
One-upmanship right in the title, it would have been more accurate to say,
"...than _I_ thought."

Bookmarking is a productivity aid, and so has the same variations in personal
(customer, user) needs as the dozens of todo list apps and websites can
attest.

~~~
saraid216
The correct word to prefix "is harder than you think" is always "humility".

------
ThomPete
Interestingly I had that exact discussion with some friends yesterday too.

I normally divide it up a little different.

1\. The things I want to save for possible use later. 2\. The things I need
for something specific but only once. 3\. The things that I want to read
later. 4\. The things that I use now and then or often but can never remember
the url for.

The last of the four to me is the one most often overlooked and is why I still
haven't found a tool I like.

Things that fall into that category is.

My netbank, internal links, insurance site, things I am a member of, online
tools, asset libraries that I use often etc.

The best analogy I have been able to come up with so far is a
desktop/launchpad for the browser and it might be exactly that way of thinking
about bookmarks that will make someone come up with a good enough solution one
day.

~~~
ntoshev
My favorite for #4 is Google's +1. You need a Google Plus account. +1 is like
Facebook like, only it boosts the ranking of that link whenever you are logged
in and search. Not every page has a +1 button, but there is a chrome plugin
for that. Side effect: the links you +1 are boosted for your G+ friends too,
so the bookmarks are sort of public.

~~~
ThomPete
Yeah what I want is a cluster of links that is always "floating" no matter how
i tagged them and no matter how long it's been since I bookmarked them.

So +1 doesn't really work since I want to tag them
#LinksINeedNowwAndThenButAlways

------
webwanderings
It isn't difficult at all. You just have to shift your perspective.

Now: Keep them in your browser, local to you. Keep the frequently-used ones
right in front of you in the bookmark toolbar. For example, I don't rely on
Chrome's Apps tab, so I have Gmail in my bookmarks toolbar folder called
1.Launch (1 because I have several others sorted accordingly).

Later: Link blog them (on Tumblr or G+ may be). Or you can even keep them
local to you using above number 1 perspective.

Future: Don't worry about loosing the bookmarks you have already consumed and
not going to come back to them anytime soon. Again, if you're link-blogging
the content you feel you need to save, than you don't need to worry about
future.

~~~
Trufa
That is neither easy nor a solution.

~~~
webwanderings
If it works for me then it is a solution, isn't it? As I said, it requires you
shift the perspective. Bookmarking-on-the-server is an over rated phenomenon.
People can keep the URLs locally to themselves.

~~~
Trufa
I have no issues against you using your method, I'm glad it works for you, but
I can't see how this could possibly help the majority of of people.

> Now: Keep them in your browser, local to you.

What do you mean by local, I wanted them synced with my phone and my three
other computers, but I may have misunderstood you.

> Keep the frequently-used ones right in front of you in the bookmark toolbar.

How often do I have to rearrange them? Or delete them? Or send them to the
later? Or should I just keep adding them to the toolbar until they naturally
disappear and create an endless mess of unsorted bookmarks?

> Later: Link blog them (on Tumblr or G+ may be). Or you can even keep them
> local to you using above number 1 perspective.

Why would I, it seems so much more trouble? I'd rather bookmark them in a
folder named later.

> Future: Don't worry about loosing the bookmarks you have already consumed
> and not going to come back to them anytime soon. Again, if you're link-
> blogging the content you feel you need to save, than you don't need to worry
> about future.

This is the one I disagree the most! This isn't a shift in perspective, it's
ignoring the problem, I go back to my bookmarks months (years?) after I've
booked marked them, and I'm happy to find them.

\---

Honestly I manage my bookmarks pretty well with chrome now-a-days specially
with the built in sync system, I'm very happy I don't have to worry about sync
anymore, I even have them in my phone all the time.

What honestly I think is missing is better search, you can only search by
title or URL as it is. The URL of an old enough one is virtually impossible to
remember and the title so many times doesn't help much either, you might not
remember it or it might be a smart ass title that is not a good description of
the topic in question, so many times I end up finding it quicker in Google by
inputting the text I remember rather that going through my bookmarks, since I
tend to remember the essence of the article.

I think labels would also help since an hierarchical organization that would
actually help would be insane, I'd rather write a couple of words referring to
the article, but the truth is most of the times I can be bothered.

So yes, I agree with the author, it is not an easy problem.

~~~
webwanderings
> I wanted them synced

Both Firefox and Chrome sync. But you already answered this yourself.

> How often do I have to rearrange them?

You don't rearrange any bookmarks in your browser. Frequently-used links like
Gmail, Twitter, Weather etc is something you keep in front of you all the
time. These are links to other services you use daily.

The Read-later types, those you can simply either delete (from the Read-later
folder) or you move to another folder when you know you have consumed them. It
takes few clicks.

The reason you link-blog them on Tumblr or G+ is because you may want to
revisit the sites to refresh your memory, or you may be sharing your link-blog
with someone else (not necessarily the whole world though).

> I go back to my bookmarks months (years?) after I've booked marked them

There was an article not too long ago which suggested that people don't really
visit their bookmarks but they think that they will.

The reason you can technically forget about your online bookmarks is becuase
Google search is handy. If you can search your saved-bookmarks using tag words
or other keywords, than you can do the same on Google. Again, the shift-in-
perspective I am talking is already making sure that you are keeping the most
important bookmarks (your tools, your read-later articles etc) closest to
yourself. You are only ignoring the not-so-important URLs.

------
greyman
Like the author of the article, I also use more than one service for
bookmarking - Pocket for Read later articles, Google bookmarks for tagged
bookmarks for unspecified future use, and toolbar in Chrome for all other. But
I don't agree with the notion that it is overly complex, or that I want to
consolidate all this to one service.

------
DotSauce
Pocket covers nearly all of the requests you posted from HN; cross-device
compatible, Pinterest style layout, export to html, search, tagging & sharing.
I'm really enjoying it as a private bookmarking service.

<http://GetPocket.com>

------
cl8ton
Another problem I always had with bookmarking websites was my lists would grow
too long and interesting bookmarks would get lost in the mess without pruning
them.

So I created a website 2 years ago that constantly visits the URL and lets me
know whats changing on the website the bookmark is pointing to and emails me
the deltas.

Not trying to hijack the OP’s thread but if interested , visit diphur.com

------
halgir
I'm using the open-source Zotero for organizing my research. I imagine it
would work well as a bookmarking tool. <http://www.zotero.org/>

------
frenchy
Am I the only one here that is quite satisfied with the bookmarking system in
my web browser?

------
nano111
most currently existing bookmarking services support tags... you could use
"now", "later" or "future" tags?

------
dsubhankar
Superb explanation !

