There was a time when managing bookmarks was a very simple affair. Of course, web browsing software applications did not offer even half of the functionality that social networking websites offer today. However, considering the large number of web sites available today and considering the fact that each website claims to be the best, it does become difficult to ascertain whether you have chosen the right service or not.

There are many web sites offering the ability to store bookmarks online, share them with friends and assign tags to make them easier to search. The end result is that we store all our bookmarks online and access from anywhere on the World Wide Web. However, there always is a doubt whether the bookmark stored on the site is private or not. Of course, we are given the choice of determining whether the bookmark should be made public or not. However, one can never be sure that one has marked a bookmark as a private. Most social networking websites work on the principle of making bookmarks public unless specifically instructed as private.

To solve this problem permanently, Yahoo has their come up with a different websites for bookmarks storage. One is bookmarks.yahoo website which is totally dedicated to private bookmarks. The other website is Digg which is exclusively dedicated to social networking of bookmarks. You can a share the same account on both the web sites. However, you cannot make any bookmark private on Digg and you cannot make any bookmark public on Bookmarks.Yahoo.

Both the sites are very user friendly and have been designed in a very intuitive manner. The private bookmark web site offers the ability to assign tags to the links. Hence, you can quickly search through your private collection of bookmarks without any difficulty.

You can upload your public bookmarks like links to blogs, current event, news and happenings to the public bookmarking web site and retain your private recipes, cooking information, and private financial information to your Bookmarks.Yahoo site.

Had the site in question been managed by any other entity, the issue of privacy and security would definitely have arisen. However, Yahoo has established itself as a brand that is synonymous with quality service and security. You can be rest assured that your private bookmarks shall remain private at all times. Your account can be accessed only through your username and your password.

When one thinks of Yahoo and lots of links, one cannot help visualize the directory service offered by Yahoo. This feature has been incorporated into this website as the surfers can store all private bookmarks in different directories. The different folders will ensure that your list of bookmarks remains completely organized at all times. Pankaj opines “I like the folder options. It keeps my things organized and clutter free.”

Of course, this web site offers the Yahoo toolbar which can be used to add links to your private account without any difficulty whatsoever. The best part is that you can access your private as well as your public links by logging on to the web from your personal computer or even from a café.

Click here to know more about this site.

Click here for some tools related to this site.

Click here for the Yahoo Toolbar

Popularity: 6% [?]

Currently 0 comment - But what do you think?

BMaccess is a social bookmaking site with a difference. Other sites permit you to upload your bookmarks to the web and share them with other surfers of the web. Further, exchanging comments about the various links submitted is permitted. If they wish to, surfers can rate the links submitted to express whether they liked it or not.

These features have been present in all reputed social bookmarking websites ever since sites like digg and StumbleUpon established social bookmarking sites as the face of Web 2.0.

Surfers are no longer interested in a website which provides just these features. They want something more for their interest and loyalty to remain firm. That is exactly what BMaccess does.

Over a period of time, you get used to watching links roll on your screen and often miss a link that may be useful. Further, it is not necessary that the tag generated by the submitter and the title chosen by the submitted may actually make sense. The end result is that you risk losing a wonderful link simply because the communication was not clear and proper. However, it is impossible to miss a link leading to an innovative cake recipe if the link is accompanied by a thumbnail of the cake or any other cooking process. This is where this site offers a new feature to all surfers. The screenshot of the website is submitted along with the link being bookmarked. Not only will you have a visual reference in the form of the link but you will have a visual reference in the form of graphics as well. No longer do you need to read each and every link. Simply take a look at the screenshot before deciding whether to visit the link or not.

Further, you can narrow down your search for the right link with the help of tags as well. Just search for the right tag or set of tags and then proceed to complete your search with the help of images and screenshots of the website.

Further, this method will help you showcase your website in a much better manner. More often than not, surfers prefer visiting those websites which are well designed. However, a link to your cooking website or website of your eatery will never indicate whether the website is a well designed one or not.

This website helps young surfers quickly get the hang of searching on the web. Children work faster if attractive markers like images accompany the link. If you want to introduce your child to the advantages of social bookmarking early, all you need to do is utilize this website which combines images with text to help you search faster.

Further, this site divides all links into different categories like business, technology, entertainment etc. to help you identify the right link in a jiffy. If you know that the link you are searching for will be found in the business section, you can just click on that category to go through only those links which are related to business.

To check out other bookmark manager, click here

Click here to visit the official blog of this site

Image Credit Flickr.com

Popularity: 6% [?]

Currently 0 comment - But what do you think?

Xanga began its journey as a book sharing and music review website. It soon became an online journal and diary sharing website. Finally, it morphed into a blogging platform with an estimated following of 27-40 million users.

Xanga has successfully attracted maximum number of young persons and teenagers into its fold. As Donna Nguyen says, “I like my xanga”. I’ve had it since like 5th grade and I’m in 10th grade.” It is indeed creditable for a website to successfully retain the loyalty of the youth and teenagers in a world where newer and more glamorous blogging platforms keep coming up.

The primary characteristic of Xanga which differentiates it from all other websites is the fact that each member gets a Xanga site which is also called xangas. Once you register, you get a xangas to your name and you can use it to establish your online presence. Unlike other platforms like wordpress and blogger, xanga offers 1 GB space for the registered user to upload as much data, photos and videos as they want. Of course, the premium option offers an unlimited space service as well.

All users of Xanga can subscribe to other websites created by other users. The most popular website is one which has received maximum subscriptions. Further, users can give eprops, which can best be described as a virtual pat on the back, to posts which they approve. They can give a maximum of two eprops per post.

As far as social networking is concerned, Xanga offers Blogrings and Metros to its users. Blogrings are groups of blogs that have been linked through common interests. On the other hand, Metros is geographical in nature and helps you link up with people who live close by. This is a very interesting feature which helps individuals living close by to form a virtual neighborhood as well.

Xanga may have changed into a blogging platform but it has not ceased to be a place where surfers could interact with each other and exchange information. Xanga offers all the basic tools required for easy and quick blogging. Spell check, rich text editor, multiple fonts- these are just some of the features that Xanga offers.

Xanga has purposefully worked towards creating a community with intense loyalty towards the parent website and to the members of the community. That is the reason why various social networking websites like Digg and Delicious face tough competition from Xanga.

Unlike Blogger, Xanga does not allow its site to be used for commercial purposes although there is a surfeit of ads on the website. This move, which may have backfired, has ensured that Xanga still remains a place where people can get together to do nothing more than plain old blogging.

Xanga offers the facility of not just creating a text blog but also a photo blog. This puts it in direct competition with websites like Facebook

Click here to find out more about the features of Xanga

Click here for a review of Xanga

<!– /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:SimSun; panose-1:2 1 6 0 3 1 1 1 1 1; mso-font-alt:宋体; mso-font-charset:134; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-format:other; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:1 135135232 16 0 262144 0;} @font-face {font-family:Calibri; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:swiss; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-1610611985 1073750139 0 0 159 0;} @font-face {font-family:”@SimSun”; panose-1:0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:134; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-format:other; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:1 135135232 16 0 262144 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:”"; margin-top:0in; margin-right:0in; margin-bottom:10.0pt; margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family:SimSun; mso-bidi-font-family:”Times New Roman”;} a:link, span.MsoHyperlink {mso-style-noshow:yes; color:blue; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single;} a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed {color:purple; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} –>

Image Credit Flickr.com

Popularity: 4% [?]

Currently 0 comment - But what do you think?

Here is another site which boasts of a rather unique name. Spurl stands for ‘Special URL’. This pretty much sums up what the website is all about. It is a place to store all your special URL’s. Further, it is a place where the popularity of all the links stored is determined on the basis of the number of users who have visited the site within a fixed time span.

Spurl offers all the advantages that websites like delicious and netvouz and delicious. However, it does not stop there. There are some features that are found only in Spurl.

For starters, this website is one of the few social bookmarking web sites on the World Wide Web which allows you to import your bookmarks from all major web browser software applications. There are some sites which permit you to upload bookmarks from Internet Explorer only. Other sites tend to give special treatment to the users of Mozilla Firefox. However, if you use Spurl, you can upload bookmarks from IE, Firefox and Safari without any problems whatsoever.

Further, this website permits you to choose which bookmarks you want to upload. Rather than dumping all your bookmarks in one upload, you can be choosy about the bookmarks that you want to share with your friends on the World Wide Web. This simple and obvious requirement has been ignored by many leading sites but is found in Spurl.

These and other features caused Paul Flyer to say “Spurl has become my favorite social bookmarking service….”

You can organize your bookmarks and create cross indexed references to ensure they can be found without any difficulty. You can place your bookmarks in a suitable folder and create as many tags as you want. More the number of tags, easier will it be for any surfer to locate your favorite link on the web.

You can keep track of the latest links added to this website by checking the ‘Just In’ category. If you have IE or Firefox, you can have a spurl bar integrated to your web browser. This will enable you to keep track of the latest spurls every time you go online. The spurl bar can best be described as a spurl mini site which brings you all the information you need right into your web browser.

Just as other social bookmarking websites, this website too enables its members to add links to their accounts by just clicking a button integrated to the web browser. There is no need to perform complicated maneuvers just to add links.

Finally, there are two features that make ‘Spurl’ totally unique amongst all sites on the web. One- you do not need an email address to register on the site. This is a completely unique feature and enables all those who do not wish to disclose their email id to any new site to make use of social bookmarking.

Two- you can integrate your spurl account with your delicious account. Once this is done, anything added to the former will automatically added to the latter account as well. There is no doubt that a combined account of two social bookmarking sites is always better than one.

To download the Spurl Firefox extension, click here

To know more about spurl, click here

Image Cridit : spurl.net

Popularity: 4% [?]

Currently 0 comment - But what do you think?