Yahoo is unveiling an entirely new Bookmarks product this evening at new.bookmarks.yahoo.com – new interface, new back-end, the works. A screencast created by Yahoo developer Tom Chi is here which gives an excellent overview of the service (Chi also created the background music for the screencast). Compare that to the existing Bookmarks product (screenshot is here) and it’s clear how significant the overhaul is.
Yahoo Bookmarks, while invisible to most cutting edge web users, still claims around 20 million active users (compared to only 1 million for del.icio.us).
Until today, Yahoo Bookmarks (which is a separate product from del.icio.us and My Web) stored only the URL, title and comment for a particular bookmark. The new product caches all text on the page, stores a thumbnail view, and allows both categorization (folders) and tagging of each bookmark.
The new Bookmarks product is also integrated with a new version of Yahoo Toolbar for Internet Explorer, allowing for one-click bookmarking. Searches on the Toolbar search bar also auto-complete to suggest bookmarks stored for that user.
The new product has been moved to the same platform as My Web, with the sharing and some other features stripped out for now (look for del.icio.us to also move to this platform in the near future, while keeping it’s unique look and feel).
In a briefing today, Yahoo said they may eventually begin integrating user Bookmarks directly into search results (they integrate My Web bookmarks in a very minimal way already). This could pose a competitive problem for new search startups like Wink, which already combine traditional search results with user-generated bookmarks.
Checked the new service out. I do not really understand whats the point of this. They already have delicious and now this big overhaul. Maybe they could have used all the energy to make delicious better. Either ways, delicious still beats yahoo bookmarks on the ease factor.
Anshul, Yahoo likes to buy companies and then completely fail to integrate them into their existing services.
so very very strange that they are maintaining 3 separate products on the same platform (from what I remember, del.icio.us is now on the MyWeb platform as well)
I mean I guess it is just a different website design, but why are the so afraid of bringing the communities together?
Well I thought I’d give this a go… pleasant interface, easy to use and I like the page snapshot it gives you as the ‘icon’ for your bookmark, and the resulting bookmarks page was starting to look quite nice.
Then I tried using one of my bookmarks. Oh dear! The bookmark opens inside a small frame underneath your ookmarks view, and you can’t change this behaviour. In fact, in terms of customization there’s actually very little you can do. Pointless having a monitor running 1280×1024 if Yahoo are going to force you to view your pages in a postage-stamp sized panel in the middle of the screen which makes New Yahoo Bookmarks useless as far as I’m concerned.
RobH — That sounds like a bug. Your bookmarks should open in the same window full-size. Would you please submit a bug with some more details on your browser/OS versions and the steps to reproduce? A screenshot would be appreciated.
http://add.yaho...gi_betafeedback
Thx,
- Duke
Yahoo! Toolbar Team
So should we use delicous or this service?
I’ve lost more than 100 of my saved copy of bookmarks in Yahoo MyWeb2.0 by importing them into Yahoo bookmarks, and then try to delete them in Y! Bookmarks. It deletes my bookmarks in Yahoo MyWeb2.0 also, without any warning.
So bad experience. Still not find the way to recover them. Uh, 100 recent precious article , my fault.
Could someone please tell me where I can get my bookmarks. They are all gone! Are they lost forever? I don’t see any menus that will allow me to display them. What’s going on?
dumbfounder – today we announced plans to consolidate our bookmark services into two: Yahoo Bookmarks for personal bookmarking and del.icio.us for social bookmarking. Over time, we expect MyWeb users to migrate to either service.
Behind the scenes, we are extending the social bookmarking platform built for MyWeb to store the data for Yahoo Bookmarks and soon del.icio.us. This will allow for seamless migration from one service to another while preserving your existing bookmarks.
TanNg – MyWeb and Yahoo Bookmarks share the same backend database. MyWeb users can use the new Yahoo Bookmark interface to manage their bookmarks so importing from MyWeb is not necessary and deleting bookmarks in one service will delete them in the other.
- Tomi
Yahoo! Social Search
Here’s an analogy that might help a bit:
Let’s say you ran a restaurant, and every day 21 customers came to eat. 20 of them always order mashed potatoes and 1 always orders french fries. One day you update the mashed potato recipe based on what your 20 customers said they’d like…
This makes the fry guy angry. “Why did you use all that energy to make mashed potatoes better? I though I made it clear that *I* like french fries.”
The fry guy is actually a pretty smart fellow, and he offers the following argument next: “Look. I know that underneath it all, fries and mashed potatoes are made out of the same stuff! Why not just combine them into a superdish? Or just make everyone eat fries. That would work too.”
At this point, a 22nd customer enters the restaurant. He sees fries and mashed potatoes on the menu and says: “Sheesh, how am I supposed to know what to order? You guys have both fries AND mashed potatoes.”
The owner responds: “Actually, everything is free, so you can try both and discover which you like… we’ve found most people that eat mashed potatoes don’t really like fries and vice versa.”
Actually, writing this just made me hungry
— but I think the point is pretty clear. Even if was only the difference between curly fries and steak fries, there’s no reason to make everyone eat just one thing when you have dedicated customers that like each.
this, like all the other yahoo services i won’t use, requires me to log in every day. too inconvenient.
also, the del.icio.us link in the article has a comma after the www
@Tomi. Now after losing nearly all my collection this year, I know it. But the problem is there are no warning when I delete it, and no information about it anywhere.
I wonder if Bookmarks have outlived their purpose. Now-a-days, to find something I just go to Google/Yahoo and use the search engines.
Yeah, once in a while I do come across some really cool site which I like and save on my browser, but I use the sync facility available with firefox to ensure that I don’t lose the links.
The screencast is impressive. I’m sold! Honestly, I never cared to use digg/delicious to store/share my personal bookmarks but the new Y!B is something I want to give a try. In fact, I’ve been searching for something like this for quite some time to manage the few thousand bookmarks I’ve across my various browsers. I’ve used “Sitebar” with some success but the UI was not too friendly and was missing some key features such as sharing bookmarks instantly by email etc. But now Y!B seems to have most of the features I’m looking for and most importantly a very intuitive and friendly interface..let me see if it really delivers what it promises.
RobH – if you click on the thumbshot it does the frame thing to let you edit the tags/folders/notes – yes quite anoying.
But if you click on the blue title it goes directly to the bookmarked page.
I will start using it as soon as it integrates into the toolbar for firefox.
Question:
The Yahoo Bookmarks are never shared (only personal usage after yahoo sign-in), in contrast to del.icio.us?
like the thumb pics. is there another service apart from blinklist that provides thumb pics??
I don’t think they had Firefox 2.0 in mind when they were creating it.
Will there be an API to let us build mashups?
I switched to Spurl from Yahoo bookmarks cause:
Yahoo has gotten unbearably slow
and
Yahoo is limited to 1000 book marks.
I can use it once it integrates with ff.
I like the folder options. It keeps my things organized and clutter free. Thanks Yahoo!!. I still like the sharing part in myweb and also the way popular tags are highlighted (all the buzz is about tagging these days).
There is a small issue though here. I have lots of Businessweek.com bookmarks and the new yahoo bookmarks is showing same page for all, as the thumbnails. It gives an impression that these bookmarks are duplicated, but they are not.
I am not to going to use this. Its better to stick around with del.icio.us.. Its better to wait and watch..
One other odd thing is that I downloaded the Yahoo toolbar and when I clicked on the Yahoo Bookmarks link it took me to the old service which of course has none of the bookmarks I just imported into the new service.
This sounds interesting. My biggest problem with Yahoo (and a big reason I haven’t been using it) is that their products seem like a big jumble, with no unifying design. For example, I tried to go to the home page and find the bookmarks feature, and could not — I couldn’t even find My Web.
Their home page must be one of the most confusing consumer-facing interfaces I’ve seen. I think they have some good products, but a radical simplification of their interface would go a long way towards making those products shine.
One suggestion would be to allow the user to get a home page with all products organized in 5 or 6 major groups depending on the user’s objectives, e.g. Stay Organized, Communicate, and so on. In any event, they can do much, much better (and I hope they do).
If you look at the links when you mouseover, the link for the thumbnails is the cached/saved version of the page. Clicking on the text link itself goes to the actual site. This could probably be clearer.
I think the direction now makes more sense than keeping myweb/delicious separate, especially when delicious started adding the networking features itself. I’m guessing the extra social features on myweb will be integrated into the delicious site when it’s ported over.
Mod Mr Zippy up! I tried Y! Bookmarks many moons ago and was heartbroken by the 1000 bookmark limit.
You see, I keep an extensive and well organized bookmark collection that’s easily a decade old. The thing almost acts like a private catalog and search engine.
I prefer bookmark services that actually *synchronize* the browser’s native bookmark mechanism with the server (i.e. Google Browser Sync, SyncIT), rather than have a separate mechanism imposed on me (Spurl, delicious).
I’d try the new Y! bookmarks if the corresponding toolbar genuinely syncs my Firefox/IE bookmark stores with the server, and there’s no 1000-item limit.
Now Yahoo needs to make sure that people other than tech heads actually find it. It’s a great idea and can really compete with del. but it needs some promotion and a good reason to really use it other than self promotion.
It looks a lot like Blogmarks.net
Hi Tomi,
With del.icio.us having an option to keep a page personal (do not share checkbox) why would someone want to use two different services for the same purpose?
Would it not be more sensible to integrate both with del.icio.us having folders (a good move in Yahoo! Bookmarks) and page caches?
The screencast is really nicely done. does anyone know how it is made?
for information junkies like me, I think diigo is still the best
Hey everyone, a couple points:
1. Zippy, Brian, et al, there is no more 1000 bookmarks limit. Save away!
2. Firefox access – It’s in the works, so sit tight.
3. Combining everything…
There are actually two parts to this. On the platform side, we *are* unifying things. On the product side, we’ve identified two clearly differentiated markets, and thus in the long run there will be two products (there used to be 4! – so we are getting better). So, to summarize:
* For those of you who are invested in delicious and love it, please keep using it! Tell us what you’d like to see (but please use del.icio.us blog for that).
* For people who really like MyWeb, we have good plans in the works. Neither you nor your data will be stranded.
* For the 20 million people who were using old bookmarks (and any new folks who are interested), welcome to new bookmarks.
“Yahoo Bookmarks, while invisible to most cutting edge web users”
Either I’m not cutting edge or I’m a minority. I swear by Yahoo bookmarks – they nicely synchronize my bookmarks across platforms (Win, *ix, Mac) and browsers (IE, Firefox) using the Yahoo toolbar.
Seems like I maybe the only one, but I really like this service specifically the ability to save a cached copy of the page. It’s finally a solution for people like me who like to keep the actual webpage just in case it disappears. I have been trying to find a service like this in the clouds and the only thing close to it is Google Notebook which is horribly slow. So right now, I have to use the FF Scrapbook which is fine, but it is stored locally which I rather not have just in case my computer fries. Y! bookmarks is not bad. My only question is what is the limit on the total number of cache pages you can save?
Seems cool, I like that you have the option of using either folders or tags or both for organization and the drag & drop thing is cool, I wish my Google Bookmarks had that… But one thing I just noticed is that if I click on tools, preferences, or help nothing at all happens it just takes me right back to my bookmarks list…
Am I missing something, or is there no way to save except the bookmarklets or adding to the toolbar. What if I am at a computer that I don’t own, and find something I want to save to my Yahoo! bookmarks?
Tom Chi: Best metaphor for web products ever. Very nice
This update to Yahoo! Bookmarks is awesome. Well done.
I finally got up and running on delicious recently and have been using it for personal bookmarking. Silly me!
John — you can use the “save” action at the top of your bookmark list (it’s in the panel with ‘edit’, ‘move’, ’share’ and ‘delete’).
You’ll have to manually enter in the URL, but that should be perfect for your purposes…
John, use the “Add” next to “Full View” to manually put them in…
The problem with many Yahoo services is the highly intrusive ads they inflict on you. I am turning off Yahoo Mail for this reason, and lately I am finding myself moving to Google Finance too. Yahoo seems to be under the monetize-everything-to-the-very-limit school of business. That is the problem when companies are run by “proper” business types as opposed to geeks. Much as I fear the prospect of Google winning everything in the internet, I have to admit they are far, far superior to Yahoo in serving the user. The ultimate irony, of course, is Google makes far more money per visitor (and per employee) than Yahoo, something those proper, mature business types at Yahoo should be ashamed about.
I would like to use the Yahoo Bookmarks service, but I am afraid it will sports its Yahoo style ads. Yahoo should remember what greed did to AOL.
Great discussion on this site!
Goyal – we expect users to choose one of Yahoo! Bookmarks or del.icio.us based on their bookmark usage behavior. Users that prefer folders and seek a better tool for managing their personal bookmarks are likely to find Yahoo! Bookmarks more intuitive. Users that prefer tagging and sharing bookmarks will find del.icio.us more compelling.
We will continue to innovate on both products and we are mindful that there are two audience segments with different needs. As people become more comfortable with sharing their digital lives online, we expect the segment of social bookmarking (del.icio.us) to grow in relative size. The migration from one service to the other will be seamless as we complete the del.icio.us back end migration in 2007.
Sounds a lot like they are trying to copy Clipmarks.
james: other bookmarking sites that offer thumbnails? Simpy ( http://www.simpy.com ) has them via BetterSearch extension – see http://www.simpy.com/help for the link.
Furl is still better, with more options such as rating a page (or document), marking items as private (or public), marking items as read, and separating comments and clippings — along with its feature that simultaneously allows the e-mailing of the link, i.e., a user can save, e-mail or save AND e-mail.
Sorry Yahoo, but Furl is still a much, much better service.
http://www.furl.net
I played with the system a bit, and I must say I’m impressed with the improvements. I’ve always liked a folder structure over a tag one, so much so that I basically set my delicious bundles as pseudo-folders. Unfortunately, when I finally got all my bookmarks transferred over, the application crashed! Hey, if nothing else we now know that Yahoo Bookmarks is made with Symfony
IMHO for social search/bookmarking the main question is not functionality but the quality of the links themselves, which means the amount of expertship of the community behind. If you want plain popularity ranking instead, then you certainly need that “other” market for the rest of us and comfort is the main issue. I’m quite happy with del.icio.us, and rather wait for an even more ‘elite’ filter system to get rid of the head of the long tail to get straight to the real meat.
@Tomi Poutanen and Tom Chi
what if i want both? i like both personal organization with the folders structure and social sharing feature at the same time, i believe it is definitely more sensible to integrate and combine both del.icio.us and Yahoo! Bookmarks into one product, where the users can opt to make it a social bookmarking tool to discover new sites or a personal bookmarks organiser or both, isn’t that better?
using tom’s analogy, it’s like making it into a buffet serving both fries and mashed potatoes, customers can choose to eat either one or both, way better ain’t it?
for now i use both Yahoo! Bookmarks and Del.icio.us, and i have to save the links twice, i just hope you guys can integrate the platform and database asap so that i only need to save once, either that or put a link so that when i save at one it saves on the other for me at the same time
@Tomi – Thanks for the reply. But a couple of questions remain.
1. Why have personal bookmarking option in del.icio.us when it is meant to be used for social bookmarking?
2. Why have reccomended pages (social bookmarking) in Yahoo! Bookmarks?
It’s like both services can be used for both personal and social bookmarking, with one of the two features being more stressed upon in both the services.
Why not give me a single service with del.icio.us’ ease of use and tagging ability and folders and page caches of the new Yahoo! Bookmarks?
Also, the tagging ability in the new Bookmarks can definitely do with some more working.
So what does everyone use to manage their favorites apart from what comes with their browser? While I enjoy going through places like del.icio.us to find new things, I don’t really use social bookmarks. I prefer storing and managing my bookmarks in one place because of all the computers/platforms/browsers I use. Is there a good solution? This new Yahoo app looks like it has potential, but it is so proprietary that I’m not sure if I can use it.
wil osb and Goyal,
Thank you for the good points. This is admittedly a transition period as we unify the platform — but once we’ve got that settled (it’s no small task), many of your concerns will be addressed. At that point, if you like and use both products, it won’t force you to manage two sets of bookmarks in two places. In terms of tagging, because Bookmarks is built on MyWeb it’s tagging capabilities are actually very rich (a superset of delicious, because it allows for spaces e.g. ’san francisco’ is a valid tag).
We didn’t invest deeply in exposing the tagging features in the first rev of bookmarks, because as noted above, this product was designed for those 20 million regular folk. We brought some of them to the lab, and high-powered tagging features did not really excite them. That said, we do plan to expose more of the good tagging stuff for the GA release.
Oh lastly… in terms of being a proprietary solution. Both Bookmarks and del.icio.us offer a variety of export options (to browser, to XML, etc). If you want to bail with your bookmarks and delete your accounts there’s really nothing stopping you.
Hope that answers some questions.