Monday, March 3, 2008

Thing 52: Clip the highlights with Clipmarks!



Ever wished you could just stash away, in an organized and retrievable manner, various bits and pieces that you had been scanning or reading? Well, Clipmarks is the tool for you. It is my current favourite Web 2.0 tool ;>) and makes me feel more in control of all the stuff that comes onto my computer!

With Furl and Bloglines, you can save the urls, but with Clipmarks you can save the actual article or the clips you want. Once you have signed up to Clipmarks, you install a button on your browser (IE or Firefox are enabled), and then simply clip any website or blog article. You can then send the clip to your blog, email it, or print it and save it into one of your ClipCasts (aka subject folders). You can save the clips for public or private viewing. You can also set up Clipmarks so that your Clipmarks are accessible through your Facebook profile, MySpace, Blogger and others. You can see mine here on Facebook.

And all of this only relates to YOUR clips. You also have access to everyone else’s clips (just in cases you wanted more stuff)!


Discovery exercise

1. Set up a free account with Clipmarks

2. Set up at least two Clipcasts for your account

3. Clip and save a couple of clips from blogs or websites to the two Clipcasts, making some clips private and some public

4. Blog about the experience and what use you could find for the tool. If you use them, compare and contrast the functionality with Bloglines, and Furl. What works best for you, what doesn't work?

Optional

Install Clipmarks on your blog or Facebook profile so that you (and others) have access there.