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Ask HN: Network based bookmarking - could it be useful?

12 points by sw1205 ↗ HN
We run a bookmarking site and are interested in variations on the bookmarking theme and are interested in your opinion as to whether private bookmarking networks would be useful? Imagine Ning but for bookmarking.

If you think there is a market for it, would you pay for it?

Thanks in advance for any comments.

10 comments

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wccrawford
To clarify: Social bookmarks? You create a group and invite people to it and everyone can see the bookmarks that are placed into the group?

This sounds like a great add-on to a social network, but not something that I'd sign up for as a standalone product.

Also, a Wiki can do that already, as long as browser integration isn't required.

If we're talking browser integration, there'd need to be some way to sync it with the server. That might be useful, if you can join multiple groups.

sw1205
Yes that is more or less it. If for example you work for a company and have company based bookmarks - you could create a work network (like Yammer) and you can then bookmark just like you would normally with say Delicious - add tags, categories etc.

However other people in your company could join your network and you can then see what each other are bookmarking (it is social bookmarking but with a like minded audience). No one could see into your network except the members of that network.

This could be something fun like a sports club based network where like minded people are all bookmarking useful sporting sites etc or it could work for a business who want to share work links.

p4r4d0x
Sounds rather like Delicious, just with privacy restrictions. Although, I can see myself using something like this.

Here's what Delicious's FAQ (http://www.delicious.com/help/faq#network) has to say about it:

Can I share a bookmark with just the people in my Network?

No, bookmarks can only be public or private right now. We may add something like that in the future, though.

sw1205
That FAQ is almost exactly what we want to offer. I have completely different bookmarks at work to what I do at home. People at work would find my browser bookmarks really useful but some of these are sensative and have no place in the cloud. The idea therefore is to create a solution for this problem (if one does not exist already).
gambarra
Google Bookmarks also does this - I think it's now superior to Delicious.
photon_off
I think any sort of "instant group" website would be a hit right now. I imagine you're outlining the ability to create a SubReddit, and have only specific people able to participate in it.

I think it's a great idea. However, the most crucial ingredient would be an absolute minimal barrier to entry. Don't make me provide and verify an e-mail address, or any of that junk. Just make an obscure URL for each group, and those that get the URL can participate, and/or have a password to enter the group.

As wccrawford pointed out, it's more of an add-on to a social network. What's important is the group, not the links per se. So, while bookmarks (and maybe up/down voting) would be important, so would sharing other things, like contact info, files, conversation (forums), etc. Bookmarks and conversation would be the bare minimum.

hardik988
Thingler is a collaborative, real-time to-do application built over NodeJs, complete with password protection. You don't even need to provide an e-mail address. I think the OP can look into http://thingler.com to check out how awesomely they have implemented this.
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DevX101
There are more established players in the game, for whom it would be trivial to add this feature.

Xmarks ended(?) their business with millions of users once Chrome and Firefox decided to add distributed bookmarking.

It's a cool idea, but I'd be cautious about building a business based on it.

stwe
There is a start up called Mento (I think somehow connected to Hasso Plattner Ventures) that executes this idea: http://www.mento.com/