In 2006, after years of saving bookmarks in the browser, I started using an online bookmarking service.
I was tired of opening up one of the three browsers I used, only to remember the bookmarks I saved were in another browser.
An online bookmarking service meant I wouldn’t need to use one specific browser, which was one of my goals.
As well as being better able to tag, organize, and collect my bookmarks.
Having a separate bookmarking service has worked well over the years, especially when services added mobile bookmarking apps.
Given how things change in the digital world, it’s fascinating to me I’ve only used three bookmarking services in the past 17 years.
And now I’m moving to my fourth service.
Raindrop.io
When I posted on social media that I was looking for a new online bookmarking service, I explained I wanted a service that:
- Was available on web and mobile (no desktop app needed)
- No operating system requirement (I use multiple operating systems)
- Provides tagging
- Allows export if/when I need to move to a new bookmarking service
Rob Whiting and Ross Wintle quickly responded, recommending Raindrop.io.
I visited the site, checked out the features, pricing, ability to import, and found many things I liked.
I signed up for an annual pro license (30-day money back guarantee).
My first thoughts: what I nice change and beautiful interface to use!
Over the past month, I’ve streamlined, decluttered, and organized thousands of bookmarks down to under 500 bookmarks.
After exporting my bookmarks from Pinboard to HTML format, the import into Raindrop.io took less than a minute.
I haven’t spent a lot of time on Raindrop.io so far, but a few interface features stand out from me:
- Two pane interface displaying bookmarks and filters in the left sidebar and bookmarks in the main content
- Ability to sort by date, name, or site
- Quick filters in the left sidebar for articles, links, video, documents and images
- A filter for broken links, highlighting I have 17 bookmarks with broken links I need to look into
I’m looking forward to exploring it more, but for now, I’m happy with what I’ve found.
My Experiences with Online Bookmarking Services
It’s been years 17 years since Ma.gnolia was released in 2006, but I remember I was excited to try out the new service.
I was frustrated searching in my browsers for a bookmark I knew I saved, but couldn’t find it in the long list of bookmarks. Or it was saved in another browser.
Ma.gnolia, a social bookmarking service, captured the attention of web professionals with its focus on:
- Saving private or public bookmarks
- Tagging bookmarks
- Sending bookmarks to your contacts
- Finding other people’s bookmarks
- Joining special interest groups
I was thrilled!
The interface was beautiful, the web design and development community quickly signed on and it was a great time for learning and sharing.
Sadly, in early 2009, Ma.gnolia suffered a major outage (Internet Archive Wayback Machine). The backup and stored user data was lost.
Ma.gnolia users were left scrambling, trying to find recent backups or reconstruct their bookmarks.
Including me.
Like many other Ma.gnolia users, I didn’t have a recent backup of my bookmarks.
I started over with another bookmarking service: Delicious.
And made sure I had a regular process for backing up my bookmarks.
Seven years later in early 2016, I had a similar experience when Delicious closed down.
Except in 2016 I did have a recent bookmark backup.
Must be something about seven years, because I’ve now moved to another online bookmarking service.
Wrapping Up
If you want one place to manage bookmarks and resources you’ve saved in browsers, note-taking apps, etc, over the years, I recommend taking a look at Raindrop.io.
The online service is free. But if you want to search your bookmarks and save a permanent copy of the page you saved, you’ll need to pay for their premium service.
My gratitude goes out to Rob Whiting and Russ Wintle for their recommendation.
