Library clips

Clipmarks is uploading their new features as we speak, and they’re just awesome.

If you are not familiar with Clipmarks, check out my earlier post…basically a folksonomy for bits of webpages rather than a link just to the page…this way you get a link to the page, but you can also display a chunk or clip from a page and add some text…you can do this as every entry has a permalink.

So think of it as del.icio.us with permalinks, and each entry can have text and a chunk from a page you are describing, also with a link to the page.

So it’s kind of like a blog folksonomy, as you can have permalinks and comments, but it is not intended for free blogging, it’s more for bookmarking a page, including a chunk of that page in your bookmark, and any text you want to add.

And of course there are tags, it’s a folksonomy after all, there are also folders, so you can have the best of both worlds.

New features

- Profile

- My clipmarks

The My Tags and My Folders sections have been joined, so you can tab between the two

- Public Clipmarks

The Top Tags and Top Clippers sections have been joined, so you can tab between the two

- Stuff I Follow

The Follower a Clipper section has been joined with a Follow a Tag to make a new section called Stuff I Follow

- Make a ClipRoll

An RSS to Javascript code available for every RSS feed, which is for basically every page on the Clipmarks website I guess

- Chatter

This has enhanced the section that aggregated comments made on your clipmarks, and comments you made on other clipmarks, and taken it to a whole new level.

This is amazing, it shows what Clipmarks are being commented on as they happen.
I hope Eric (CEO) doesn’t mind but this is what he said in an email:
“So, if you and i are looking at the same clipmark we can have a conversation about it just like over instant messenger. And, of course, anyone else looking at that page can jump in…no refresh required ever”

This feature has 3 tabs: My Clips, Public Clips, Chatter I’m In

It’s kind of looking at livemarks for del.icio.us, but you are not seeing real time bookmarks, you are seeing real time comments left on bookmarks, and you can interact immediately.
It’s really promoting discussion around a bookmark, this would be perfect for news folksonomies such as Newsvine or CommonTimes, or even Digg.

If you are logged in to Clipmarks, give Chatter a go, view the Chatter Box, each entry is referring to a post, displaying the name, number of comments, how long ago the last comment was made, user who made the comment, and the owner of the post…so if there is a discussion on one post you will see several entries in a row for the same post.
Anyway to leave a comment just click on a chatter box, and it will launch to that users clipmark, just add a comment, and then watch your comment appear in the Chatter item on the right sidebar.

What would be good is if you could click on a down arrow on the Chatter item and see the recent comment without having to launch to the page.

If you tab to Chatter I’m in, you will see an aggregate of all the comments you have made, and if you tab to My Clips, you can see all the comments left on your clipmarks.

Can’t remember if there is any type of notification if someone leaves a comment on one of your clipmark’s…email, RSS comments for a user account (maybe for a tag, or for even a clipmark - maybe that’s going too far), or even in your systems tray…actually I just noticed there is an email notification.

I know other folksonomies such as Shadows and Connotea aggregate comments, but to see this in real time and jump in as it’s happening is something special.

TechCrunch has brought the Protopage new release to my attention…this is now a clear competitor to Netvibes…see the TechCrunch post for a list of similar services.

The Protopage blog explains all the new and excellent stuff on board, I’ll also list some points:

- virtual pages
(now you can have multiple desktops, or desktop pages)

- dock panels
(minimise any panel)

- To do list panel with editor and print function
(Netvibes have plans for this)

- button for your blog
(so people can add you to their Protopage in one click)

- share pages
(I wish you could do this with Fyuze)

- Calendar

- Multiple feeds in the one scrollable panel
(I wish you could do this in Netvibes)

What a great offering, sharing pages is awesome, like I said if Fyuze could share pages you could give people a quick display of your newsmastering efforts, as an alternative to your spliced feed view in services such as SuprGlu, or Blogdigger group, or kickRSS.

Viewing feed news pages including multiple feeds is great as you can make topic news boxes, maybe I don’t need Fyuze, maybe I can make just a news page with heaps of topic news panels, and share it with others…these features such as multiple pages, sharing, mulitple feeds in a panel, full screen mode, mark as unread would be great for Netvibes.

I also love docking panels, as these pages can start to get cluttered, actually having multiple feeds in one panel also alleviates clutter.

I’ll still stick with Netvibes as it serves my general needs more, but I’ll certainly use Protopage to make news pages to share…Netvibes are great innovators, and I hope they implement some of Protopages ingenious offerings.

Some similar tools are not exactly virtual desktops, or home pages or start pages, whatever you call them, but they do focus just on displaying feed contents in feed display boxes:
Fyuze
Daily Rotation
InfoAgent
Box the web

Solution Watch has offered a great explanation on his trials of a new yet to be released service called dabble db…about page, and blog, also a demo.

With this service you can create your own databases: bookmark managers, to do lists, etc…as Brian puts it:
“The idea is that you create your own applications storing information the way you want and viewing it the way you want.”

Plenty of exporting choices…RSS and OPML on board, and also sharing your database/s for viewing or even collaboration.

This is not the same as Ning, but it is along the same lines, in enabling users to make applications to share with others…lately the web2.0 environment is really turning users into drivers.

A similar service is baseportal.

First it was the Weblogs Compendium, then the RSS compendium, now Peter Scott has the OPML compendium…including an awesome list of OPML on various search engines and tagging systems.

A few things missing from this list are compiled in one of my posts here.

Also some new additions:
OPML Sampler
OPML2RSS
OPML Generator
OPML sidebar script
eg. an OPML directory (OPML’s within OPML’s)…dynamic changes
eg. an OPML Directory as a webpage

First it was OPML2RSS now hold on we are going to go in reverse with RSS to OPML via the OPML Generator.

Just whack in some feeds and it will generate an OPML file…you will have to cut ‘n paste the code and save it as a text file with the extension .opml.

Most RSS Readers have an OPML file already for the whole account, but not many have one for each folder/tag (only one I know of is Feedmarker)…so in this case the a OPML Generator is an alternative, otherwise there is always an outline tool that generates an OPML file, but if you don’t use outlines the OPML Generator is a quick and easy specifically focused tool for the job.

Just a side note if other RSS readers followed Feedmarker and enabled an OPML file for each folder/tag, this would be excellent, as long as this OPML file has it’s own unique URL so you can share it with others (in the future - dynamic reading lists), or view it in an OPML search engine.