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Ask HN: A possible Delicious Alternative? (favilous.com)

9 points by mdoyle ↗ HN
With Delicious closing down we thought we would recommend our bookmarking site - Favilous. We promise never to sell to Yahoo so there will be no chance of us closing down!

We had been working on a major revamp of the site and it just so happened Delicious made their announcement (or didn't make their announcement!) when we were about to press the launch button.

What do we offer? Bookmark quickly and effectively for free. Attractive site with users having the ability to customise backgrounds and arrange bookmarks in categories. Save articles for viewing later - so now you can bookmark and view sites later, a combination we do not think exists. Users can see what sites are hot and what sites are popular. Social - Follow people who bookmark things of interest. Bookmark things on the fly with a click of a button and it saves it to your inbox for viewing later. View what the community is bookmarking - this page is of great value as it offers descriptions of the sites that are being bookmarked. Import bookmarks from various sources including delicious.

Background We are a 2 man startup from the UK. We are bootstrapped. We have thousands of links already bookmarked from thousands of different users.

We would love to know what you think and what feedback you may have so that we can improve the service for new and existing users.

thanks!

25 comments

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sw1205
With Delicious closing down we thought we would recommend our bookmarking site - Favilous. We promise never to sell to Yahoo so there will be no chance of us closing down! We had been working on a major revamp of the site and it just so happened Delicious made their announcement (or didn't make their announcement!) when we were about to press the launch button.

What do we offer?

Bookmark quickly and effectively for free.

Attractive site with users having the ability to customise backgrounds and arrange bookmarks in categories.

Save articles for viewing later - so now you can bookmark and view sites later, a combination we do not think exists.

Users can see what sites are hot and what sites are popular.

Social - Follow people who bookmark things of interest.

Bookmark things on the fly with a click of a button and it saves it to your inbox for viewing later.

View what the community is bookmarking - this page is of great value as it offers descriptions of the sites that are being bookmarked.

Import bookmarks from various sources including delicious.

Background We are a 2 man startup from the UK. We are bootstrapped. We have thousands of links already bookmarked from thousands of different users.

We would love to know what you think and what feedback you may have so that we can improve the service for new and existing users.

thanks!

petervandijck
"We promise never to sell to Yahoo so there will be no chance of us closing down!" -> that's incorrect logic.
sw1205
It was only meant to be a light hearted joke. However if you want a serious reply - Yahoo bought Delicious and then a few years later they decide they want to possibly close down Delicious thus panicking users everywhere. We are focused on our userbase and would not want to put our site, which some of our users rely on, in any danger of closing and thereby forcing users to lose their bookmarks.
petervandijck
To be honest, that sounds a little naive. If you were to become really big, would you not sell? Or just not to Yahoo? Things can change a lot in a few years.
pvg
Hey, welcome to the fray!

Save articles for viewing later - so now you can bookmark and view sites later, a combination we do not think exists.

I assume you mean 'read it later'. I think it's hard to find a bookmarking service that doesn't offer this, these days. You can probably make your promotional verbiage more distinctive by taking a look at the various competitors.

and what feedback you may have

Bookmarklets don't work in Chrome.

CodeMage
Okay, how do I import bookmarks from delicious? The "Import bookmarks" option allows only importing from a file and I haven't find anything in help about importing from various sources.
bbuffone
I never got the whole bookmarking craze. Why is this useful? Google has every link on the web and you can easily search for things. It always seemed easier just go to google and search again then try to bookmark, tag and use another search to find a link you may never use again.
whyleym
I often forget sites that I have previously visited (sometimes years) before as such I tend to bookmark as much as possible things that I will find interesting or useful at some point in the future.
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mdoyle
I think it depends on who you are and what you want from the web? E.g. I've just spent three years finishing a masters and being able to bookmark hundreds of articles which I used for research was invaluable. Sure, you bookmark in your browser, but I use three machines daily and numerous browsers. Having access to my bookmarks anywhere I was studying was very useful. I think the millions of users on various bookmarking sites is testament to the value of bookmarking.
sw1205
Specifically to our site - if you see an article you like but don't have to read it, then you can use our bookmark it with 1 click of a button and save it to view later. You can also organise all your bookmarks in an easy way and follow people who you find bookmark interesting things.
dabent
I find that I use my "favorites" on my browser a lot, then change computers and don't have the links I stored.

Google and Bing are very good at what they do, but there are certain articles/how-tos and such that I find very useful to keep around without having to remember the exact query I used to pull them up on Google. Also, search results change over time, so that blog article I loved might not score on the search engines like it did last year.

Bookmarking sites also offer some of the functionality a site like HN does, with popular/recent links coming in over time.

That's what I think is important, anyway.

bbuffone
I have never had more then a 5 favorites, unless it is something I go to everyday (google analytics) then it doesn't get added.

Also browsers have great autocomplete. If I want to go to hackers news. I hit "n" in the url bar and I am there.

dabent
Interesting site. I signed up with a test account, but I can't get the "Create a new bookmark" link to work.

The background is very dark and I almost couldn't see the search field because it's only one shade lighter. I couldn't figure out how to change my backdrop. I clicked a new color, but couldn't figure out how to save it.

I currently use Pinboard.in and so far think it was worth the $7.XX I spent to sign up. How do you differ from them? How will you fight spam links?

How do we know if you will never close down? Maybe you won't sell to Yahoo! but what about someone else?

sw1205
Thanks for the feedback - we will look at the bug you mention now.

To change your backdrop there is an option 'change your backdrop' under 'create a new bookmark' - we can make that stand out more. You can then use some of our sample ones or upload your own - once clicked or uploaded it saves it automatically.

The first way we differ is that we are free, I appreciate people may be willing to pay for their service but for now we are free and all users who sign up now will not have to pay. Secondly is that I guess we are a bookmarking site aimed at more creative types. Pinboard is a great site functionailty wise and speed wise but you could argue it lacks in appearance. We hope that we offer a lot of the functionality Pinboard do but also you can bookmark in a nice looking site.

We have modertators who will look to fight spam and if we eventually add a fee for the service this should also prevent it.

I should rephrase - we will do everything in our power to ensure we won't close down.

Thanks for the feedback

inovica
I've been using http://historio.us for a few weeks now and have been impressed. Now, I've not looked at other services, but I think its great that I don't have a desktop filled with shortcuts that I will never use. Indeed, it's really helped me a few times when I know what was on a site, but not what the site was called - a quick search and I find it. It makes life easier and the free version will handle up to around 300 bookmarks I think. I did pay for the full version and was a bit disappointed that the 'tagging' was handled after the bookmarking (so I never use it) but its a good service.
CodeMage
Suggestion: use OpenID for authentication. I'm going to test the site anyway, but I'm really not looking forward to the prospect of creating yet another account on yet another site.
cheald
I wrote my own Delicious alternative: http://1r7.net :)

I'm working on OAuth integration with Yahoo for import, some nifty display stuff, and device-aware CSS for clean browsing on your phone or ipad or whatnot. It's a fun project.