How Do You Remember Sites?
from the the-death-of-the-bookmark dept
Browser bookmarks or favorites have always seemed very cumbersome to me. I used them very early on when I first got on the web, but after collecting a tremendous list I never used, I stopped completely. Now, the only "bookmarks" that I use are for bookmarklets that allow me to do something. They're not for remembering where a page is, but to make it easier to use a service. However, bookmarks have remained in just about every browser, and finally some people are wondering if there's a better way. These days, I tend to just use search engines, and hope that my memory is strong enough to keep track of the important things. If I know I've visited a page recently, I'll use the history functionality. That's worked out quite well for me. In some, very rare, cases I'll post a link to a personal blog or wiki that I use for just such things. It seems like I'm not the only person to think this way. Plenty of people have ditched bookmarks altogether. Lots just use search engines, and others do things like sending themselves emails (something I've done at times as well). Some new technologies people are working on include a better ability to search through history files as well as "enhanced" bookmarks, that let you easily add notes about the site (though, it appears not too many people are interested in this). Not mentioned in the article, though, are sites like del.icio.us that are ways for people to store (and share) links they want to remember. The article also seems to ignore the fact that many people use personal blogs as a way to store links.
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What's so bad about Bookmarks?
I find the history functionality totally lacking - you really have to remember the URL to figure out what site you're looking for anyway!
Personally I bookmark my favourite sites, and export my favourites to a HTML page on my web server, so I always have them with me, and can import them into any browser I please.
It's too much hassle going through 6 million entries on a search engine for "that story about the spam", so I don't see how people find that better (although I'm sure techdirt would come up #1 for that search!)
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Make Your Own Page Locally
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No Subject Given
(if I'd bookmarked the site, I'd remember)
You'd think that the benefit of contributing to their cataloging effort would be the ability to track back/search through all the sites you'd visited. Furthermore, you'd think they would tout this ability.
I use the now-hard-to-even-find "History" feature in Explorer more often than I imagined, and it has a search feature. I find that useful for recent searches, but it is only as good as your settings for how long you want your history to be (# of days, setting in IE).
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Maybe that is a good use of Eurekster, in that it does store your previous searches - and the results you clicked on...
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Re: No Subject Given
1. use your seraching and expertise in certain areas to allow them to rank sites based on your feedback. Implicit in this was that the sites you visit get higher rankings than the sites you neglect, so your natural filtering helps them filter for future users.
2. utilize your idle cpu & bandwidth to catalog the web
I may be combining disparate companies' models here.
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bookmarks
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No Subject Given
For example, bookmarking this Google search which includes a direct quote from Tueday Techdirt story on Booble likely ensures that I'll always be able to locate it (unless Google goes under)
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Re: No Subject Given
see http://www.human-links.com
and http://www.neurogrid.net
Also, problem with google as bookmarker is two-fold:
- lots of sites change their policies on whether they want google or other bots crawling them for indexing. I've had sites like AVSforum suddenly decide to deny google and other bots and now I've got to remember that I found it at a certain forum and search there. PITA.
- manipulated rankings -- you may not find the right link b/c others have manipulated their pages to appear above the one you want. I cannot believe how often I find a company listed on page 3 of google searches and their most aggressive retailers/distributors dominating the first two pages of listings.
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No Subject Given
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nested bookmarks
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Re: nested bookmarks
I have a bookmark for work and for home. I've used both IE and Netscape. I've not been able to use Mozilla yet, but have heard it's great.
Many people also store successful searches on their bookmarks/favorites.
I have 3 levels of bookmarks; for example News:International:BBC UK.
Of course, this is a librarian talking! :)
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Bookmark Research
http://www.aripaparo.com/archive/000719.html
Feedback is welcome.
Ari Paparo
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hmmm.
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No Subject Given
I suppose that other browsers do similar things, or will, or should, I don't really know, I've been a Opera user for 5-6 years and have been pretty happy with it.
Now, if only I could set this up so that every machine I work on used the same configuration and storage (and was checked into cvs every night) I'd be a lot happier.
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Favorites Lists
The document has a hierarchical structure to better organize the links. The advantage over the web browser favorites list is the document is very small and very portable so I can carry it with me on a diskette and use it anywhere.
Like the browser favorites list it must be maintained to eliminate sites no longer of interest and update URLs.
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No Subject Given
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