Clipmarks: killer app for the rest of us

If I were one of those bloggers who was good at the short stuff, I might not need Clipmarks. I’d either have me a whole blog of linky goodness like Jason Kottke, have the time to write a multitude of posts about a multitude of wonderful/useful/both things like the folks at BoingBoing or Lifehacker or the geeky know-how to program a running list of links with pithy summations onto my main site, like swoony Merlin Mann.

But I’m not. I write long. I suck.

Fortunately, Clipmarks does not. In fact, it is the opposite of sucky, in that they seem to have anticipated my every webby need and programmed it in, then delivered it to me along with (AHHHHH, SWEET MYSTERY OF LIFE, AT LAST I’VE FOUND YOU!!!) redundancy so I can rest assured that if they ever go south, forever or even for a teeny split second, my data is also safely held for me at del.icio.us (here’s mine) and StumbleUpon (here’s mine, and also a lengthy, glowing review of that excellent tool).

Like StumbleUpon, you post links to pages you find interesting, write up an optional summary, and then like Digg, people vote you up the list. You can choose to follow clippers you like, and they can choose to follow you.

Two things make it extra-fabu. First, you don’t have to post the whole page, just the parts that interest you. There’s a Firefox extension that plugs all the necessary dialing up to the mother ship and clippability; you just clip and send. No more sifting through a long dense article to see if you want to read it: the summary is right there! (I like to add commentary anyway, b/c that’s the kind o’ broad I am—pushy!) And you can tag the ever-lovin’ crap out of it all, so you can find it later.

Second, you can send the entire link or just your clipped portion to any number of other collection services, like del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Digg, etc. And you can set up your clipmarks as a virtual blog by registering with Technorati, so the blog-o-verse will be able to follow the trail of your crazy genius! (Although even Clipmarks can do nothing about Technorati being broken all the time.)

So if you’re one of the few who miss my occasional link round-ups of yore, you can bone up (ha ha, I said “bone”). And if you’re looking for a way to collect all of your own stuff in one place, you are so DONE, baby!

Word of caution: like all of these 2.0 apps, it can get addictive. I am probably a lousy community member, since I mainly clip and don’t “pop” (i.e., vote on other people’s clips). And I never check to see if something’s been clipped. But the gang are very nice and supportive (hi, Eric!), nonetheless: look who’s Quote of the Day:

xxx
c

Image by Canonadian (ha ha!) via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Tagged as: Shameless plugs, Tools of Goodness

Posted in: The Useful Ones