
Google’s New Bookmarking Service, Previously Called Stars, Has Gone Live - applecore
http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/30/googles-new-bookmarking-service-previously-called-stars-has-gone-live/
======
Numberwang
Bookmarks seems like an outdated technology. With the resources Google have,
it would be cool if they could create a site where you can follow other sites
as they update. Perhaps this site could then even differentiate between
different 'streams' or 'feeds' from sites. And in this workflow you could add
the 'stars' to articles and updates you would find interesting.

I hope someday they will create or have this system evolve into something like
that, which would be a lot more useful.

~~~
flippyhead
> Bookmarks seems like an outdated technology.

I agree. I made [http://fetching.io](http://fetching.io) because I hate having
to remember to save something just to easily find it later. Everything you see
should be indexed and easily searchable.

~~~
jrsnyder
Cool! I was just thinking about building something like this myself, after
reaching the point where I save almost everything I read to Diigo, just to get
searchability.

~~~
StavrosK
There are lots of services like this. I made
[https://historio.us/](https://historio.us/) back in 2009, when no full-text
service existed (as far as I recall).

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honzzz
I used to use Google Notebook and Google Reader. I saved many notes and tagged
many articles. Google suddenly discontinued both. I am not going to invest any
effort into learning/using any Google service without some assurance that it
is going to be supported at least 5 years.

~~~
rikkus
Yep and I used Google Bookmarks too, so that I could get to them from
everywhere, but it was dreadful if you had more than a few tags (massive load
of HTML loaded for each tag which made a huge tall page) and was clunky.

I've moved to pinboard.in (of course).

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archagon
There is no point in betting on something that has a 50/50 chance of
disappearing in a few years to store your valuable bookmarks — especially when
(I assume) cross-platform support will be lacking.

Use Pinboard instead.

~~~
fwn
I feel that this "it will disappear" notion right behind every Google
announcement slowly tends to get some witty meme. We all know every service
will end.

~~~
threeseed
Really so you expect Google Search or GMail to just wrap up at some point ? Be
serious.

It is those services from Google that don't contribute to revenue to be wary
of.

~~~
fwn
I'm with you. I should've written: We all know every service will end,
therefore this notion is useless.

I doubt that the average google product lifetime undercuts the average overall
product lifetime.

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eksith
The eager user in me is delighted there's a place to save my bookmarks.

The paranoid user is worried Google will have access to my saved sites and
sell my usage stats.

The nostalgic user is still irritated that Google Reader could have still been
saved and this feature appended.

~~~
eli
Google sells targeted ads, not usage data.

~~~
th0br0
Where's the difference?

~~~
dragonwriter
In selling usage data:

Someone pays Google, gets your usage data (and can do with it whatever they
want).

In selling targetted ads:

Someone pays Google and gives them a specification of what kind of people
they'd like to see the ads, and Google uses the usage data they already have
to select who to show the ad to.

At the end:

In the former case, Google and the third party both have your data.

In the latter case, Google has the data, and the third party does not.

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wanghq
FYI, there is a
[https://www.google.com/bookmarks/](https://www.google.com/bookmarks/) which
is a completely different service.

~~~
greyskull
Why wouldn't they merge that with the Chrome bookmark sync? Many years back
there used to be a section in Google Docs (I think that's what it was called
at the time, well before the switch to Drive) where I could see all of my
bookmarks; if I was away from my personal computers, I could still see the
links without syncing chrome. I switched to Xmarks just for that feature.

Granted, now I always have my phone with me which has the sync. But it still
seems odd that they wouldn't give us web access to that data.

~~~
abraham
The old Google Bookmarks can't be merged with Chrome bookmark sync because
Bookmarks uses tags while Chrome uses folders. The same URLs would end up
getting duplicated in several folders.

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epaulson
If any members of the Google Data Liberation Front are reading HN today, is
this on your radar to support? Failing that, any word on an API into the
service behind it?

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wiredfool
Idlewords should budget for a couple new servers in about... 2 years or so?

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rgovind
Tangentially related.For long tail queries, Why is there no "research mode" on
search engines?

Often times, I find myself searching for some term like "Commute Home Traffic
app" on app store (For market research purposes). Google, Apple, Bing, all
give a huge list of results but I cannot go through them in a single sitting.
So, I should keep the window open and keep clicking next occasionally (Spread
over multiple days).

If I do the same search again, these search engines return same order of
results I am unhappy with. Is there no solution to this problem? Can't they
remember which results I am not interested in and stop showing them? Can't
they let me continue my "research" where I left off from?

~~~
Igglyboo
I can count on my fingers how many times I've found useful results past the
first page of any search engine.

~~~
rgovind
I often do market research queries. For example, I would like to see if there
is an app that focuses on "real estate or home buying simulation"...If you
search for this in google, first few pages of results are for training agents.
I frequently go beyond first page in the hope of finding a long tail result
that fits my needs.

------
exhilaration
While this is nice I'd like really like something that will not only save a
bookmark to a particular page but a snapshot of it as well - maybe an HTML
version but a screenshot or PDF would also be great. That seems to be the kind
of problem Google could solve.

~~~
interurban
Pinboard does this IIRC.

~~~
dewey
It does and I really like that feature, well worth the money. It's kind of sad
if you see the stats on how many of your bookmarked sites are not available
any more after a few years.

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sferoze
What about the ability to collaborate with other users on a shared bookmark
folder? It would be useful if multiple users could add bookmarks to the same
shared folder.

Also how do I access my bookmarks if I am at a friends house and don't have my
computer or phone on me. Do I have to login to my chrome account on their
chrome browser? What if they don't have chrome installed? It would be nice if
they had a basic website I could access from anyones device, where I could
login and view all my bookmarks.

I think the auto folders is the most innovative part of the app. I will have
to use it more but I feel like I would stop creating folders and just add
links.

~~~
CitizenKane
My company is making precisely this product. We have a fair amount of work
todo, but we have a usable private beta right now. You can't collaborate quite
yet, but it's on the horizon.

If you'd be interested you can find my contact details in my profile!

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dghughes
Finally a place to store my 50,000 unsorted bookmarks from the last 20 years
:/

As others have said bookmarks seem to have outlived their usefulness, the idea
makes sense but managing them is tedious.

~~~
kanzure
> the idea (bookmarks) makes sense but managing them is tedious

What sort of bookmark management tasks do you find yourself spending lots of
time or effort on?

~~~
dghughes
Primarily categorization and then searching.

Trying to make folders to categorize websites but I end up with multiple
folders for the same website and the mess grows.

The fewer folder categories the better. For my files I try to keep it simple
and have just Media, Applications, Documents as the top level folder. Media
would break down in to pictures and video then video into TV, movies.
Documents and Applications would also break down a bit more.

The other problem is the websites I gather tend to get added faster than I can
categorize them which is compounded by the multiple category problem.

Searching do I search by time or category? Sometimes time is easier if it was
recent but then later on, years later, it's easier to search by category.

In the end I get frustrated and dump it all into one giant pile probably never
to be viewed ever again.

~~~
kanzure
Oh that's interesting, why not just use tags though? One bookmark gets any
number of tags, and then you just have to be somewhat consistent about your
tag choices. The first few hundred bookmarks are usually tagged poorly, and
then after that you get into a consistent naming pattern.

[https://github.com/davidlazar/jotmuch](https://github.com/davidlazar/jotmuch)

~~~
dghughes
I think I've tried tags maybe on bookmarks maybe it was some things else.

I am a fan of them maybe I drifted away from them for some reason.

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Fuzzwah
I've used a variety of services similar to this over the years; delicious,
spurl and currently diigo.

My use case works like this:

1) find an interesting website / article 2) highlight a paragraph 3) click the
magic button (ie: diigo's chrome extension button) 4) save the url along with
the high lighted text and a tag 5) my blog then pulls in this info from my
diigo user's rss feed and displays it to visitors

I'll be checking out google's effort, but I can't see me moving away from
diigo unless I have to.

~~~
vagarwa
would love to get your comments on our efforts at Surfmark (now focused on
education but still open for everyone) required disclaimer: founder, surfmark

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niels_olson
Will this break my xmarks collection and, after I've added content, can I
revert the new stuff back into xmarks later? I have been shepherding my
collection since before del.icio.us had a bookmarklet, indeed since Netscape.
Xmarks, despite its warts, at least it has cleanup tools I can us now and
again, and I can take it with me to Firefox or Safari if needs be.

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tbatterii
there was a need for this? yet somehow reader had to die?

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ppetty
This is the perfect opportunity for someone to build a comparable service to
swoop in & save the day when this gets shut down.

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hokkos
It doesn't seem to even index the bookmarked pages, what is the point ?

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IkmoIkmo
Don't feel very enticed to move away from Pocket at the moment...

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jfb
People, just use Pinboard.

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mimighost
It looks like Pocket

~~~
Robadob
It looks like a Flat UI version of the chrome web store to me.

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x0x0
Dead pool? Or maybe we should call it a fewer-arrows more-wood pool. Or even
"haha you gave us your data" pool. If I were cynical, a "do you dumbasses
_ever_ learn" pool.

I've got $10 on Oct 2016. A nice round 2 years.

