
Show HN: Zapmarks - jacobgraf
https://zapmarks.io/
======
jacobgraf
Thanks for checking out Zapmarks! I created this product for myself first and
foremost but I am hoping other people find it as useful as I do.

I am a developer by day and jump from device to device and browser to browser.
I hated having all of my bookmarks tied to one or the other so I created
Zapmarks!

Also, being a small business owner, I wear many hats and have lots of
different accounts for everything. It's great coming up with a keyword in your
head and knowing it will take you directly to what you want it to.

For example, I have many Google Drive accounts for different things, I have
'drive' set up to go to my personal Google Drive and 'drive2' goes to my
business Google Drive. Since I know this and have built that muscle-memory, I
can get directly to exactly what I need very efficiently! Here are a few other
Zapmarks I use frequently, as examples...

vzw = Verizon Wireless Account budget = Google Drive Personal Budget Sheet qb
= QuickBooks Online bank = Online Banking fbm = Facebook Messenger en =
Evernote gh = GitHub

I have lots planned for Zapmarks! Give it a shot and let me know if you have
any questions!

~~~
knarf180
Best of luck to you on your project. It reminds me of aol keywords

~~~
jacobgraf
Thank you!

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StavrosK
Hmm, isn't this built into Firefox? Bookmarks can have keywords and they are
automatically synchronized everywhere.

~~~
jacobgraf
Yes, Firefox has bookmark keywords. I remember using these way back when, but
then I moved to Chrome and I was lost. Zapmarks is cross-platform and works
with any browser, that's our main advantage.

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jumbopapa
I'm curious - why is the pro membership limited to 500 zapmarks? Seems like it
would be trivial to make that unlimited.

~~~
jacobgraf
It was set at 500 as a starting point, if we find Pro users are frequently
getting close to that limit, I'm sure we'll tweak things as needed!

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eps
This looks like a bookmark manager UX enhancement, and while I can understand
a value of this being cross-platform, it would probably make more sense in a
form of a browser extension.

Alternatively, I can see it being a "start page" sort of thing with support
for efficient keyboard search, but again this doesn't strike me as something
dramatically more useful than a static HTML page with Ctrl-F for search.

This basically solves a trivial problem in a somewhat overcomplicated way
while creating a paid dependency on external service.

~~~
jacobgraf
We already have a native Chrome extension to do just this, and are working on
other native solutions. We also offer a number of other ways to integrate it
into other platforms using simply a URL. When logged in, we have a "Tools"
page which lists some of the options for integrating Zapmarks into various
platforms but are working to add more as we go!

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dougk16
Nice! I do the same thing with custom aliases in my .bash_profile for all
kinds of things, including opening various webpages, opening meditation videos
on youtube and such to certain timestamps, so I think the idea has some legs.
One thing I do with my aliases is have custom arguments, so like if I want to
open a stock ticker on yahoo it's `yah goog` from the command line. So being
able to add custom arguments might be a cool additional feature.

Good luck!

~~~
jacobgraf
I use lots of bash aliases as well!

Yep, query strings are on our list! Thanks for checking things out!

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no_protocol
Hmm:

\- Are variables allowed in the links?

\- Can you set it as the default search engine for your browser so these can
just be typed into the main search bar instead of going to the Zapmarks site
each time?

Firefox's built in keywords already do great for this, and I have seen
[https://shortmarks.com/](https://shortmarks.com/) for other browsers. What
does your site offer that those do not? They are both free options.

~~~
jacobgraf
Variables aren't supported in the links yet, but this is definitely on our
radar! We focused on keyword functionality for launch, but the search would
definitely be handy as well!

Yes, you can manually change your default search engine using this url.
Substitute %s for whatever your query string variable is for your
device/browser.

[https://zapmarks.io/u/%s?api_token=your-api-token-
here](https://zapmarks.io/u/%s?api_token=your-api-token-here)

On Chrome, you can simply install our extension which allows you to type 'z
{keyword}' to access your Zapmarks. Other native browser extensions are in the
works as well.

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/zapmarks/pdomgldhp...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/zapmarks/pdomgldhpdbgeogocoogemipgcjmbfhi?hl=en-
US)

We have a few benefits over the competitors, like Secret Access Links which
allows you to use your Zapmarks on new browsers and devices without logging
in.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fr4dPcnrUMM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fr4dPcnrUMM)

Also, we are working hard on developing lots of other ways to integrate our
product into other devices and platforms, like Alfred on the Mac.

[https://s3.amazonaws.com/graftechnology/zapmarks/Zapmarks.al...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/graftechnology/zapmarks/Zapmarks.alfredworkflow)

Hope that answers your questions. Thanks!

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michaelanckaert
Congratulations on launching Zapmarks!

I’m a big fan of bookmaking services. Having better ways of managing your
saved information is important to me. I run
[https://trackr.sh](https://trackr.sh) that serves a similar goal.

Why did you pick a single keyword to identify your bookmarks? I use a similar
workflow in Firefox vit found that it doesn’t scale for a lot of bookmarks.
For [https://trackr.sh](https://trackr.sh) I chose to go with a multi tag
combination where you select a number of tags to narrow down your list of
bookmarks.

~~~
huhtenberg
Hijacking other person's ShowHN to promote your own project of nearly the same
exact nature is not very nice, don't you think?

~~~
michaelanckaert
It certainly wasn’t my intention to hijack this post. I wanted to ask a
genuine question. Personally I don’t think referring to a competing product is
bad when asking for a comparison of features.

Sorry if my comment came across as self promotion!

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Brajeshwar
Is this like (and a competitor to) Pinboard[1]?

I love Pinboard. I was lucky to have bought the lifetime license during one of
the promos.

Free App, Shiori[2] on the Desktop is an excellent companion.

1\. [https://pinboard.in/](https://pinboard.in/)

2\. [https://shiori.apponic.com/](https://shiori.apponic.com/)

~~~
skinnymuch
Shoiri doesn’t always work with Chrome. It doesn’t work with a lot of other
browsers. It’s not dependable anymore if you’re not using the most basic or
common browsers (Safari, Chrome). And whatever causes it to not work with
Chrome for me sometimes.

I use either Spillo or Alfred workflows now on Mac.

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conductr
I’m curious, why make users type in the keyword? They already have the links
saved and are logged in. You could display them in a tile format or a list
something? Seems to me like 2 steps, visit zapmarks and then type a keyword is
a lot of work. That’s just my 2c, respect you have a different flow and this
feels right and nice product

~~~
jacobgraf
Thanks for the feedback. Zapmarks is definitely more focused on the keyboard
than the mouse. If you have a keyword in your head, we want you to be able to
type it and go. Tiles would cause you to have to look around to find what you
want.

We have thought about maybe having your top 3 most-used Zapmarks appear under
the search bar for quick access, but not sure if that's something we will move
forward with or not. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

~~~
conductr
I get it. Seems very niche use case. Keyboard requirement in a mobile world. I
feel like the browser bar essentially solves for it already except I have to
remember the 3-4 characters to get the autocomplete to fill in. But at least I
don’t have to configure it either. My idea of tiles is like a phone/tablet
where I could order it myself and learn the placement through muscle memory.
Scanning by eye is much easier than typing and remembering what keywords I set
up. I can hardly remember my passwords.

Anyways not raining on you’re parade. It’s a cool concept just doesn’t fit the
use case I’d prefer. Best of luck with it!

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erichurkman
Did you look at [https://www.golinks.io](https://www.golinks.io)?

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ADent
Looks good. I have too many bookmarks for this. Might be interested if you can
add folders and ways to access them for infrequently used items.

I miss foxmarks. I pay for another service, but you have to log in at least
once. Firefox accounts and thus bookmarks are blocked at work.

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anonytrary
I typically remember at least one or two keywords about any site I visit.
Usually, typing these into the URL bar will turn up the desired website as a
suggested result in Chrome.

~~~
jacobgraf
Yes, most of the time this might work, but it also might not. With Zapmarks
you know exactly what you're getting because if the keyword doesn't match, it
doesn't work. One example would be my Google Drive example, I have multiple
accounts and deep link to each of them using their own keyword (drive, drive2,
drivepersonal, etc) I know if I type that keyword, I will get right there.

With suggested results, you might get to the main Drive account but then will
have to go through a series of steps to "switch accounts" to whatever account
you're looking to access.

This is one of the big differences. Thanks for checking us out!

~~~
anonytrary
The keyword idea would be a great fallback for the existing "suggested URL"
function in Chrome.

I think it works as intended about 95% of the time. It'd be nice to be able to
add to a simple Map<Keyword, Url> table that the "suggested URL" feature can
use as a fallback.

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robotstate
Your copy is really bad. I have no idea what your product does after looking
at the website. Maybe I would if I watched the video, but I'm not going to
watch the video.

~~~
prawn
This is harshly worded but completely true. Until I reluctantly watched the
video, I had no idea what the product was. I wouldn't rely only on the video
and I wouldn't invite sign-up before telling people what they were actually
signing up for.

~~~
jacobgraf
Thanks for the feedback! We'll definitely look to improve on that. It's a hard
concept to convey in text. Most people don't get it until they are shown,
that's why we did the video, but we'll look at other ways to help people "get
it" when they first visit our site. Thanks!

~~~
prawn
Try an autoplaying silent video without interface. Or an animated GIF.

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rashivkp
in Firefox I can sync my bookmarks everywhere. Bookmarks can be easily
accessed using *<keyword> format

~~~
jacobgraf
Yep, but Zapmarks is browser-agnostic which is a main feature.

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jacobgraf
Here is a code for 50% off of your first year of Pro. Expires on 10/31/19\.
Enjoy! F5zLMQTX

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sdan
How's this different from syncing host files between machines?

~~~
jacobgraf
You can't sync a host file to an iPhone.

That's just one example, but at the core, that's the difference. You could
access Zapmarks on your Kindle browser or your refrigerators smart display if
you really wanted to.

~~~
sdan
I guess so, although I'm not that avid of a phone user.

In either case, most of the time when I type "n" I get HN or "m" for mail and
so forth. I can't really see a good use case for this.

~~~
jacobgraf
That's another difference. With Zapmarks, there is no "most of the time". If
you type a keyword you have set up, and hit enter, you will get exactly to
where you wanted to be 100% of the time. Once you've got the keywords baked
into your brain, accessing them from everywhere is very handy!

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ramon
This is the same as AOL Keywords, welcome back :)

