Talkings of a Tyrant

The StumbleUpon extension for Mozilla Firefox is an excellent extension for websurfers who are on the lookout for new sites.

It is a toolbar with (*gasp!*) a bunch of buttons on it! It doesn’t seem all that complex, but you can do a lot with this simple toolbar.

When you hit that tempting button that says “Stumble,” Firefox will automatically be sent to some randomly awesome website on the web. Granted, some of these websites suck. Most of them don’t.

The thing is, whether web sites are good or bad is determined by what people do after they are sent there. Once at the web site (or at any web site you want) you can rate it favorably or not. Simple. The more sites you rate, the more good sites StumbleUpon will bring you to. It learns from you.

Once you get to that site, you can also tag the page. Yes, tag it. Decide what words fit it best and tag it. You can’t bookmark anything directly from StumbleUpon (as far as I can tell), but you can still tag sites.

Or, if tagging and giving a thumbs-up or down isn’t enough for you, you can give a full fledged review of the website.

Granted, there are some inherent security issues from telling StumbleUpon what sites you like to visit. But there are the same issues from searching Google, or using social bookmarking. Face it, it is nearly impossible to be truly anonymous on the web. Might as well get used to it.

While these might seem simple, it is really well done. This is possibly the most Web 2.0 extension out there. Democracy and user-control is almost hardwired into this thing.

The main downside to this extension is the registration process. Registering itself isn’t bad, but doing otherwise simple stuff like changing your password or having two profiles on the same Firefox is annoying.
A word of advice: Do not delete the Firefox profile that you originally created your StumbleUpon account on! If you delete it, or move to a new computer, you will not be able to change your password.

This extension is especially good for those who like to randomly surf the web. With StumbleUpon, you can do it in style! It is difficult to explain, but something about tagging and rating every site you come upon is incredibly appealing. Useful with a “Post to BlinkList/del.icio.us” bookmark on you bookmark toolbar the BlinkList toolbar so you can rate and bookmark what sites you visited.

Download StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon.com
Get Firefox!

I’ve previously reviewed BlinkList and I would like to congratulate them on their additions to the service. They’ve added an easy to access comparison between you and your fans and friends. They’ve also added a profile that shows up on your bookmarks, though mine doesn’t seem to show up (do I have to log out?). Good job. Keep up the good work.

One of the few things they lack, though, is a decent search engine.

If I’m going to have 250+ bookmarks, I’m going to have to be able to search their titles, descriptions, and possibly the content of the page. Not just tags.

Update! BlinkList has added full text search! Yes!

Good job on the tag searching engine though. AND, OR, and NOT are replaced by ‘+’ ‘|’ and ‘!’ Excellent.

Since my previous post I’ve found a few more things you can do with Blinklist.

1. It is very easy to add someone as a friend. Just go to their BlinkList and click the face next to their name! Simple as pie!
2. Once you’ve added some people as friends, you can view a synopsis of their recent links from the front page.

Useful!

BlinkList offers lots of useful tools and functions, all without loosing any ease of use, which has led me to say:
Goodbye del.icio.us! Hellooo BlinkList!!!

Edit: to read more about Blinklist, see More BlinkList
and BlinkList is Lacking in Search

I’ve decided, to Mike’s request, to review Blinklist.

The Good

Blinklist is a social tagging and bookmarking site. Being a social tagging and bookmarking site no longer is unique and cutting edge, as there are tons of social bookmarking sites these days. Simply swing by TechCrunch or eHub to find several.

Blinklist, however, is a better social bookmarking site. It is difficult to describe, but the simplicity and ease of use is really appealing. It uses AJAX to make actions easy and quick. Instant blinking!

Blinklist is very much like del.icio.us, except better. It has all of the features (except a list of your tags when you submit a new bookmark) and a bit more. In fact, it is so much like del.icio.us (and it automatically transfers you del.icio.us bookmarks for you if you want), that it is really easy to switch over to Blinklist from del.icio.us.

Blinklist has some unique features, and several features that del.icio.us doesn’t have. If you select any text on the page, and then use their bookmarklet, the text you selected becomes the description! Saves time and energy, so you can get right back to work (*cough* *goofing off!*). The ability to make a bookmark “Private” and unviewable to public eyes is easily available. You can also star your bookmarks to easily view your best bookmarks.

I’m not as fond of the star system as others are. Generally, I only bookmark a sites that I like (doesn’t that make sense?), so the need to “star” something isn’t really prominent.

The Bad

The only thing it doesn’t have, however, is the mass cult following that del.icio.us has. Massive cult followings are the key to social bookmarking. That’s why it’s called social bookmarking. Can’t give any advice there though, and can’t blame them. Its only a few months old.

You know if this is the only thing I can think of that is bad, that Blinklist is awesome.

The Ugly

Wait, what?

Scratch that. (The Ugly)

Blinklist is in no way ugly. It is well designed and very easy on the eyes. Read this as: oooo… pretty…

In conclusion

To conclude this rather short blog post, I hereby announce that I’ve switched over to Blinklist! No more ugly-looking del.icio.us for me!

• Blinklist
• Blinklist demo (old, but still informative. Site looks a lot better than what’s shown here)
• Import from Del.icio.us
• My BlinkList Links
• Edit: The BlinkList Toolbar

I’ve Reddit and it’s del.icio.us

That pun made my soul cry

I’ve added the ability to post any post you want to del.icio.us or Reddit. Heck, if you feel generous, and you like my blog (can’t imagine why you would) you could hit those new links on the sidebar to post ToaT (Talkings of a Tyrant) to either one.

Have fun!