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Ask YC: Feedback on my webapp (semantic social bookmarking tool)

15 points by vuknje ↗ HN
http://www.faviki.com

Faviki is a social bookmarking tool which allows people to tag webpages they want to remember with Wikipedia terms.

Unlike classic tags, which are just words, "Wikipedia tags" represent references to unique concepts that have their own URL. So, instead of having different tags for the same concept, which is the case with classic tags (cocacola, coca-cola, coca+cola, CocaCola) there are just the one unique “Coca-Cola” tag everybody uses.

You can register or just sign in as demo/demo and try it with bookmarklet.

The webapp is still in beta, but I just wanted valuable feedback from the YC community to help in next iterations. Thanks!

38 comments

[ 5.6 ms ] story [ 104 ms ] thread
bmaier
Nice Job, shows that sometimes simple is the best way.
vuknje
Thank you. I did my best to make it as simple as possible.
aneesh
Nice UI, and nice idea with the concept tagging. Well done.
vuknje
I'm glad you like it! Thanks for feedback!
poppysan
Who is the target user? I agree that a semantic web is better, but I cant honestly see myself using it.

As far as execution and design however, nice job!

vuknje
Why not? :)

Target users are people who need more precise way to tag. Wikipedia covers concepts from various fields..

tylercarbone
Very nice. A few thoughts:

1. Interface. Is there any way to rewrite it so that the user can just add tags naturally, and then let the program make suggestions? It's a bit frustrating to wait, after each term, for the program to search for the corresponding tag. If you could input your own tags, and then it could list an official suggestion beside each typed term, I think that might increase usability.

2. Very minor point, but the demo video should be easier to find. I could be alone in this, but I always try to poke around for one as the easiest way to quickly grasp a web app, and the link was buried at the bottom of the page.

Seems like a great app, though; the complete lack of structure for Delicious tags was always one of the things that stressed me about it.

vuknje
Thanks for feedback! 1.I am aware of that problem, and i'm thinking about ways to make adding tags easer, like suggesting tags according to content. Your suggestion is interesting, I'll consider it definitely. 2. You're right. I added the link on the homepage
andr
i'd say change your pitch. "semantic social bookmarking tool" sounds like it came from a random startup idea generator.
axod
I agree. How about "semantic social bookmarking mashup ajax tool (beta)"?
vuknje
hmmm. you're maybe right. problem is that's really the shortest way to describe it accurately
andr
yes and no. i know what all the words mean, but when i read it and reread it, i didn't get an idea of what's actually unique about the site.
vuknje
I see your point. I’ll tell my marketing team to get to work on that ;)
STHayden
I think the idea is not to explain what the sites does but the problem it solves. the details of how it solves the problem are less interesting.
noelchurchill
What about "A social bookmarking extension for wikipedia, attaching bookmarks to different wikipedia articles."
axod
When you mouse over an item, the date disappears... Seems odd to me.
vuknje
agreed. bug added in todo list
noelchurchill
I like the concept! Tags have never made sense to me because I may describe very similar things using very different tags depending on my mood that day, what I happen to be thinking about, or any other external influences. But if there are designated "tags" for each concept then your bookmarks really are better organized.

Definitely a good job overall!

vuknje
I’m glad you like the concept. That is one of frustrations I've had with other bookmarking tools. I hope you’ll continue to use it! :)
flupkear
yes, me too, I have been using del.icio.us for 1+ year and now I have a gigantic un-useful tag cloud. Your app will not solve the problem of having too much tags, but at least make tags more meaningful. I would suggest you to integrate it with del.icio.us in some way because I don't really feel like switching to another bookmarks system at this point.
tokyotribe28
Great concept! Certainly does help to structure tags that can grow out of control in any tag cloud. I'm wondering if you've considered building this as an API or dev library so that it can be used by developers not just for bookmarking but also for tagging in general. But then, where's the money in that, eh? (^_^)
vuknje
Thanks for feedback. Right now RSS feeds are available for every page, but I definitely plan to make API in the future, and make it as open as possible for developers.
tokyotribe28
That's great to hear! All the best to Faviki!
kane
Really, really nice. Excellent work, and I especially like the toolbar button to make bookmarking easy. I'm seriously thinking about using this over del.icio.us.

One quick question, is there a way to import del.icio.us links?

vuknje
I’m glad you like it!

Unfortunately, there is no way to import del.icio.us links yet, but that feature will be available soon.

nextmoveone
Personally, I love the UI, awesome design, awesome execution. Bookmarklet is sweet as well.

But, I don't know why I need to use this? Why will this help me? What would I store in there?

Currently, my bookmarks menu bar is pretty sufficient.. Is the idea to bookmark stuff I don't know a lot about so I can learn about it via wikipedia?

vuknje
Faviki is not for websites you visit frequently. It’s for websites you don’t want to forget. It provides a way to organize them and find it later. Wikipedia's role is to help organize bookmarks, and also to provide some useful info about concepts.
spencermiles
Any way to import my existing bookmarks from del.icio.us (and clean up the tags)? Seems like that's one of your biggest barriers to adoption, at least from people who already use a social bookmarking site.

The app looks great, nice and clean, but I already have hundreds of bookmarks in del.icio.us, and don't want to start from scratch somewhere else.

vuknje
Point taken. Thanks for feedback. Importer will be available soon.
shawndrost
Frankly, I hate to see someone with your kind of drive, cleverness, and design sense working on something so trivial. Is a bookmarking tool the most useful thing you can think of working on? If so, post on yc, I'm sure people will toss out a few ideas with no strings attached.
rcheramy
Might want to checkout Zigtag in private beta.

http://www.zigtag.com/

mention YC when applying and I'll fast track your invite.

We are doing some great things with semantic bookmarking as well.

whacked_new
Very interesting, and good job there! I was contemplating doing something similar, but got diverted with other things. Would you share a bit more about your experience with using dbpedia?

Are you querying dbpedia for the tags? If not, how deep do your tags cross-link?

dhs
Caught a typo on the front page, 2nd paragraph, last line: "...and intrests well organized."

Nice concept, though. Will check it out now.

vuknje
Thanks! I fixed it.
chiken
sweet app. anyway to pull in fb friends?
idleworx
how will you handle homonyms like 'bow':

from wikipedia:

# bow - To bend forward at the waist in respect (e.g. "bow down") # bow - the front of the ship (e.g. "bow and stern") # bow - the weapon which shoots arrows (e.g. "bow and arrow") # bow - a kind of tied ribbon (e.g. bow on a present, a bowtie) # bow - to bend outward at the sides (e.g. a "bow-legged" cowboy)