last updated:16 Aug 2002 13: 32 Webword time, or 16 Aug 2002 18:32 UK time

Webword Statistics - Recent Comments (Comments added for week ending Sun 27 Jan 2002) | View Other Weeks

WebWord Comment | Tue 22 Jan

I dont use favorites (or bookmarks) anymore. I didnt even realize that I gave them up. It just sort of happened. It evolved over time. I only recently realized that Google has replaced my favorites. If I want to find a site, I use Google. If I want to find a person, I use Google. I found out that if you type in full phone numbers (i.e., area code plus the number) you can usually find people fast. Also, Google gives you maps when you do these kinds of searches (e.g., 607-687-1010). But, I digress. My point is that I dont use favorites because Google has made them obsolete. What do you think?

Tue 22 Jan 02:06 | Jack Schonchin | For me, Google cannot replace bookmarks because, after a couple weeks have passed, I cannot remember the search words I used to reach that site that had that thing that I liked. What was it again? And if Google's database has changed significantly, maybe the correct keywords don't help because the link is now buried in the results. I don't use Google for maps or phone numbers because the entry box is designed for web queries. I'm simply more comfortable with an interface that asks me for a street address, city and state. Hey, when I give Google my phone number it cannot find it. (Hmmm, actually I'm happy about that.) I *can* be found through my phone company's web site though. I'd like the next innovation in browser technology to be a highly functional bookmarking system. (Because IMHO, most people don't use the current system.) When I hit the 'Home' button I want to see my own Yahoo-style directory of links. Some links I would use every day (categorized by subject or frequency of use), some would be filed away in the unlikely event I need them months from now, and still others would be stored in an area for temporary projects.

Tue 22 Jan 03:02 | Gordon Montgomery | As usual it's all very well if you're in the good ole US of A - try being over in Europe and using Google to search! Even Google.co.uk is not that UK oriented - and before you say it...yes there is lots of great content up on sites here...a chap called Tim Berners-Lee saw to starting that :) thx. g.

Tue 22 Jan 03:33 | Edwin van Geelen | I couldn't miss bookmarks myself, but do often end up on bookmarked sites with Google instead of using bookmarks. The bookmarks built into the browser are bad though, I want my bookmarks available wherever I am. I used to use Backflip, but they turned extremely slow and unreliable. So now I wrote my own small PHP bookmark app, which I use a lot.

Tue 22 Jan 03:39 | Matt Round | You never know, if browsers' bookmarking facilities don't improve you might see an alternative added to something like the Google toolbar...

Tue 22 Jan 05:12 | tom smith | The reason nobody uses bookmarks anymore is because they were poorly designed. For instance, who's idea was it to put the most recent bookmark at the BOTTOM of the menu? Which pretty soon ends off screen. In the same way as computers are designed to hold and manage a few thousand files (not millions), bookmarks were designed no more than a few score of urls. My blog has become my bookmarks. I made myself a 'blog this' bookmarklet which lets me add web pages straight to my blog from my 'favourites' menu. My blog (unlike bookmarks) lets me search, publish (as xml) and even design and add images to my bookmarks. I can give them meaning (to me at least). But I couldn't stop myself from occassionally adding a page to my bookmarks, so now I add them and once a month put them all in a folder called 'Jan 2002'. This has the benefit of making the type-ahead function of the url location bar 'remember' places I've been, which I find really useful. I've trialled various services which offer 'networked' bookmarks, but I didn't bookmark them, so I can't pass them on. They were rubbish any way.

Tue 22 Jan 05:17 | Paul Nattress | Bookmarks need some added functionality and a whole host of usability TLC. For example, why can't I right click on a bookmark and open it up in a new window? I don't think Google can replace bookmarks. For me, I tend to find those little gems of information after looking at results page 16 and following a few links on the site. Also, I agree with Jack - I cannot remember what search terms I used. (Although the auto-complete function remembers everything I've typed in this can become cumbersome after a few months as it has dozens of suggestions.)

Tue 22 Jan 05:57 | Alastair Campbell | I have to agree with several of the comments above, and pass on my own solution. I use my own bookmarks page of my most used links, a kind of yahoo-style personal portal. (www.alastc.co.uk/bookmarks.htm) As you will notice though, this is very specific to me, and is only a solution for someone that surfs enough so that it is worthwhile actually making the page. It would be nice to automate this in some way, I like the auto-blog idea!

Tue 22 Jan 06:51 | Martin Sutherland | The browser with the best bookmarking system is Opera, imo. It has two features that make it stand out above IE and Netscape: 1: At each level of its hierarchical bookmarks menu, there is a menu option 'Add page here', so you can add bookmarks to a sub-folder with a single click. 2: Each sub-folder also has the option 'Open all folder items', which does exactly what it says: it opens a list of sites, each in their own window. This is great for regularly checking groups of sites, e.g. daily web comics, or news pages. These two options make it simple(r) to add new bookmarks, and to make the best use of the ones you have in place. Unfortunately, the UI for *managing* your hierarchical tree of bookmark folders is not quite so good.

Tue 22 Jan 12:02 | Frank Lynch | Use the Internet without bookmarks? Well, first, John, you have to remember that you've downloaded the Google toolbar, last I heard... Otherwise, with no bookmarks, you'd be typing in the url for google. And if you use google so much, that would be pretty annoying, wouldn't it? In a broader scheme, given how long it takes for many web sites' home pages to download and then figure out, if a site such as your bank had an internal log in screen, wouldn't you want to bookmark that? Sure, google will quickly take you to citibank's home page, but then you still have to navigate to the sign-in page in order to conduct your banking online. It all sounds soo inefficient to not use bookmarks for sites you visit with any regularity... And Opera's interface makes it very easy to put your bookmarks in their proper folders. I just can't fathom relying on any search engine as the primary interface to the internet, unless you primarily don't return to sites.

Tue 22 Jan 12:35 | Kirk | IE used to have a better UI for editing bookmarks, then they replaced the explorer like interface with one-at-a-time wizard like crap. For a long time I was really into using my online bookmark system, since I wanted the same bookmark set in Netscape and IE and at work and at home. In fact, I snagged the 'grab URL and title' bookmarklet from blogger. But I don't see google replacing bookmarks for me, because bookmarks serve two purposes: tell me the URL for a site I remember, and also REMIND me of sites that I don't remember, but are still useful or interesting. Though with my blog, bookmarks are reduced to only those sites that are useful but not interesting or relevant to my blog viewing audience. (And I suppose Google helps whittle that group down further.)

Tue 22 Jan 14:21 | Roland F. | I've built an IE Toolbar that enable me to do my daily (or hourly) web tour. I just put a list of website I visit often in a text file and I only have to click 'Next' to go to the next Website. I've put a lot of weblogs and news sites in my list so I can discover other websites that are related to website already on my list. When a website become boring I remove it from the list. It's an early beta but I will put screenshot on the web soon.

Tue 22 Jan 14:36 | co][nz | Dave's Quick Search Deskbar, Google and NetCaptor = productivity! I personally use Google far more than bookmarks myself, but I do rely heavily on NetCaptor's CaptorGroups to quickly open a number of sites that I like to browse/read.

Thu 24 Jan 08:07 | Marc D. | I've found that it is helpful to use bookmarks and sort them to keep somewhat organized. For instance, I have client bookmark folders that hold bookmarks for competition, and other sites that I need to reference for that client. But I agree that it's not easy to manage them all. I really like the bookmark 'holder' at the top of NN (4.7) window for quick clicking to the most used sites. I haven't checked out the Goggle toolbar yet - maybe it's similar. This discussion prompted me to look at www.shareware.com. I did a quick search under 'bookmark manager' (without quotes) and it came up with quite a few (for PC users) freeware and shareware apps.My primary computer is a Mac so my choices are limited.

Fri 25 Jan 00:08 | Lyle Kantrovich | When I first discovered Google (they were in 'beta'), I made it a personal mission to tell everyone I knew about it. My new mission is to tell folks about Powermarks (http://www.kaylon.com), a really great utility that is so much better than Google for returning you to your previous haunts, and better than bookmarks because you don't have to think so much about organization. It's also faster than Google (really). Someone mentioned this tool once on CHI-Web or SIGIA, and It's really changed the way I work. I can retrieve information much faster than I ever did before. Oh, and one of the really cool things it does is synch your 'powermarks' between PCs! By the way John, thanks for linking to Croc O' Lyle, I appreciate it. I've been a WebWord fan for years.

Fri 25 Jan 14:14 | MadMan | Not quite a bookmark manager, but have you visited http://www.ceoexpress.com ?

Radio Userland 8.0 Review | Tue 22 Jan

Move the folder Radio Userland to the trash. Empty!

Thu 24 Jan 07:27 | Matt Round | A harsh review, but Dave Winer's recent commitment to modern Web technologies doesn't inspire confidence in Userland's support for standards. 'We will stop using the font tag in our script-generated HTML code' - that's great Dave, real cutting edge stuff, the rest of us only abandoned them about 3 or 4 years ago...

Fri 25 Jan 14:10 | MadMan | You boys should visit Winerlog more often. A blog worth reading :)

Steve Jobs And The Oh-So-Cool iMac | Fri 18 Jan

(Slashdot) The truly successful technologies and technology companies are utilitarian and dull decidedly non-hip. You will never seen a Microsoft or AOL exec talking about how cool the their companies or products are, only how useful and easy to use. They dont really care how much heavy breathing they generate in the media or among excitable teenagers and college students. Those two companies have, in fact, dominated their environments by pointedly focusing on the non-technologically adventurous middle-class and busy business executives and workers and by presenting themselves not as cool but as reliable and accessible. And for this sin they get jeered at all the way to the bank.

Mon 21 Jan 09:53 | Francis Wu | IMHO, Apple lost the day they refused to allow manufacturers to make Apple clones, which resulted in uncompetitive prices and therefore a huge loss of market.

Tue 22 Jan 10:51 | Lalu | the real point is - give me your (deep deep) reasons for buying a computer. If 'being a cool&stylish person' features among them , then buy Mac. Don't you think it's quite the same with Nokia vs other phones?

Tue 22 Jan 11:25 | Andrew | In fact, you DO see Bill Gates talking about how cool his products are (X-Box, Mira, Freestyle), MS and AOL care DEEPLY about their press coverage and about how target markets (like college students with disposable income) respond to their products. It's true that AOL has coveted an easy-to-use image (justified or not), but MS really hasn't done this until the last year or two.