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A tool/webapp to recommend/share links with different groups of people?

10 points by JustAGeek ↗ HN
I would like to share or recommend links to different groups of people. I know, there's delicious but it isn't quite what I'm looking for, I think, because everything you share is visible to everybody following your shares.

I've just checked out Friendfeed and it neither seems to be what I look for, for it simply aggregates anything you share and feeds it to everybody, doesn't it?

What I'd like to do is share, or rather, recommend a link to only a subset of the people I know.

For example, one link might only be of interest to my co-workers, while another might only be interesting for my friends.

Ideally, I'd simply click a button while being at the URL to share, pick the group to share with and -bam- it's shared.

The different groups would follow my shares via RSS or something similar.

40 comments

[ 2.1 ms ] story [ 90.4 ms ] thread
ahpeeyem
You actually could use delicious, with a tag for each group. If you really don't want different groups to see your other links you could use different usernames.

e.g. if your username was JustAGeek you could have any links for your friends tagged with 'friends', and the URL for those links would be http://delicious.com/justageek/friends.

For work you could have the username 'justageekwork'.

Delicious generates an RSS feed for any tag as well, just visit that URL and it gives you an RSS feed URL for that list of links.

Use the delicious firefox plugin for the one button click sharing functionality.

JustAGeek
Hm, yes, that could work.

Though it is still a bit too complicated because quite a lot of interaction is needed to do that, even with the delicious Firefox addon. You probably have to manually enter the group name as a tag, for example.

Ideally, I'd only have to click one button displaying a popup with all groups I've set up.

But well, sounds like the way to go - unless somebody can point me to something else.

So, thanks for your answer! :)

sak84
I have also been looking for something similar to what you are mentioning, but have yet to find anything. Having the ability to choose between groups to share with seems easy enough.

The delicious method described above would work, but I believe you are right - there should be something a little easier.

Hopefully we'll find it today!

alx
http://github.com/alx/pressmark/tree/master

This is a wordpress installation I made, with a delicious-like fonctionnality: add and list bokmarks.

You could easily change the input form to include a group feature, like a pre-defined tag like recommanded by ahpeeyem.

JustAGeek
Ah, cool, will check it out later!
enra
I wish that everyone would just use IRC. I find it the most easiest and discreet way to share things and ideas among a group.
mileszs
You can do something like this with FriendFeed. We use it for a programming user group. The feature is called 'FriendFeed Rooms' (http://friendfeed.com/rooms/overview). You can create a room for each group (public or private). Use the bookmarklet (http://friendfeed.com/share/bookmarklet) to post links to any room, as well as add your own comments to the link. Users can get their FriendFeed mailed to them, if they wish. Or, you can make the room public, and they can visit it at their leisure, without signing up.

I recommend giving FriendFeed a second chance as an app, in any case. Every once in a while I come across another feature that I wish FriendFeed did that it does, indeed, already do. It does a ton, and it does it well.

EDIT: I missed one of your needs: Yes, one can subscribe to a FriendFeed Room's feed in a feed reader (that reads Atom-formatted feeds). It can also be read via Facebook.

JustAGeek
Ah, looks like I misunderstood the name "Rooms" I was under the impression it was some sort of discussion forum and thus didn't even followed that link. Will check if it's that's what I need, thanks!
scrhoads
My old company koollage.com can do something pretty close to this (if not exactly what you want). It never started up due to the usual list of reasons, but it's still running on a server. Check out the tour (http://www.koollage.com/tour.html#share), there should be info on groups.

If you have some questions or want more info, PM me or reply to this post.

JustAGeek
Thanks, that indeed seems to be what I need - except that I couldn't quite understand whether the people I want to share with also have to register at koollage.com or they could simply subscribe to a RSS feed.

And then, it's of course a bit risky to use that service when it might be shut down any moment.

teej
Twitter the link with #groupname? It's instant, it's easy, there's a client on every platform, they can go to the group page (http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23groupname) and subscribe to the group feed (http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=%23groupname). It's simple, has 100% of the functionality you're looking for, and it works.
Xichekolas
Only caveat is you have to get your friends to join #groupname... you can't arbitrarily say your friend Joe is a member of both #coworkers and #friends... he has to join those groups.

That may be really obvious, but getting everyone you know to self-categorize for your convenience can be a challenge. Being able to label someone for your own purposes is much easier.

teej
If you explicitly had that need, I feel like a mailing list could serve the same purpose. That being said, I feel like you could set up something to email-blast a group of people with your latest links from twitter for that group.
JustAGeek
Ah, yes, that could work, too.

However, wouldn't everybody (those who I didn't tell to subscribe to my group page) following my twitter account get those tweets?

teej
Unless you have an explicit need to hide x group's links from y group, you shouldn't have an issue. If you clearly state "here's the group link page. Use it" and they go there and they subscribe, it's all good. You don't need to control people (no! You can't follow my twitter account!) you just need to provide value (Here's my group link page, with all your shiny links).
JustAGeek
It isn't that much that I don't people to follow my twitter account but I don't want to spam those people with tweets containing links they aren't interested in and about whom I know they won't be. :) Hence the need of groups.
abyssknight
Magnolia was great, well, until it crashed. You could start groups and share each link with the group(s) you wanted to.
JustAGeek
Well, I guess I'll bookmark it and testdrive it once it's back.

Thanks! :D

nicoladagostino
I'v been doing exactly that with delicious for the last three or four years. Use a specific tag (or combination of tags, is you like versatility and modularity) and then give to the people/group the url of the delicious page (or feed) for that tag. You can also use Feedburner (or Feedblitz) and make it available as a email newsletter.

Nicola D'Agostino

Shooter
I don't have the time to confirm it for sure right now, unfortunately, but I think http://sqworl.com could be used for something along those lines.
JustAGeek
Hm, hard to tell from their homepage and they don't offer a tour or something. But it looks more like a tool to somehow create personalized homepages.
chanux
I think identi.ca has better way of handling groups. Just check it out http://identi.ca .
JustAGeek
Totally forgot identi.ca! Will probably be one of the things to consider when deciding for a final solution!

Thanks!

rog211
I created a tool for exactly this purpose. http://www.peerviewr.com. It is very early and very rough, but the goal is to solve the problem you mention. It allows you to post links, youtube links, upload files and pictures, and create blog posts. You can share within your group only or it can be made public. It is basically a combination between Google Groups and Wordpress. I would love to make it grow with your feedback. I call it Glogger, but the only domain I had available was at: http://www.peerviewr.com Again pls let me know what you think I believe it is useful and would be fun to make it grow.

If you have any feedback feel free to email me at: support@skuttlefish.com or just post here to HN.

JustAGeek
Great will check it out, thanks!
arien
I'm working on something like this on my spare time, since I also wanted something with this functionality, amongst other things.

If you want to talk about it or want me to send you word when/if I finish it, let me know how can I contact you :)

JustAGeek
You can send me an email to kiltec{a t}gmx.de
anotherjesse
We are building something like this at my startup. http://www.clikball.com .. It is closed invite right now since we are still rapidly building it out, but if you want to try it out and see if it fits email me - anotherjesse@gmail.com

We have private groups for sending to multiple people, sending to only to a single user. You can share publicly as well then anyone who follows you can see it (the twitter permissions model).

We had the same wish :)

Right now it is only usable via a Firefox 3 / Flock extension, but support for more browsers is coming.

JustAGeek
Cool, I'll contact you soon, thanks!
tamberg
We use Mail2FF (http://friendfeed.com/share/mail) to post links and photos to a private FriendFeed Room (http://friendfeed.com/rooms/). It works great and you can even get a daily or weekly digest by email (https://friendfeed.com/account/ > Email Settings) reducing the "interface" to plain email.

EDIT:

Instead of emailing to the room you can also add a delicious tag's RSS feed to it (e.g. ff:myroom => http://feeds.delicious.com/v2/rss/yourname/ff%3Amyroom) to cross-post from delicious using your favorite browser bookmarklet.

EDIT:

And as mileszs said (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=465772): you can add the room's RSS to a reader (even if it's a private room).

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hotpockets
can't you use google reader for this? Just make up some unguessable name for each group. No one could find the shared links unless they know the tagname. (Pretty sure, not 100%).

You can get anything into google reader. For instance you see something shareable online, then just use google notebook to save it to the appropriate tag.

[dead] asdasd3w
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