I’ve made a slight change to how I’m saving interesting sites I come across on the web. Before about a week ago, I was using Yahoo’s Del.icio.us service (bkudria on Del.icio.us), but now, I’ve switched over to the, in my opinion, much better Ma.gnolia.com (bkudria on Ma.gnolia.com).
How does this affect you, dear reader? Well, my saved bookmarks still appear on the left, there, but now, each posts has not only the title, but a list of Ma.gnolia.com tags, a link to the Ma.gnolia.com page for that bookmark, and most interestingly, a saved screenshot of the page. We’ll see how popular those are.
Comparison: Ma.gnolia.com vs. Del.icio.us
Why do I think Ma.gnolia.com is a Better Bookmarking Service™ for you? Well, Thomas Vander Wal with his post “Why Ma.gnolia is One of My Favorite Social Bookmarking Tools” has a good list of features (that post prompted me to try Ma.gnolia.com) but my favorites (in no particular order) include:
- Thumbnailed screenshots on bookmark pages and in feeds: This is quite a cool feature.
- Ratings: You can rate bookmarks, from zero to five stars. Brilliant.
- Giving thanks: If someone bookmarks a site you’ve found interesting, useful, or whatever, you can thank them. It doesn’t actually do anything, there are no points, or karma, or anything like that, but getting a thanks for one of your bookmarks is very rewarding.
- Groups: Create and join public topical or personal invite-only groups, send bookmarks to groups, and have group-only discussions. This one speaks for itself too — this feature rocks.
- Ma.gnolia.com Roots: Thomas mentions this one too, this feature has become indispensable for me. It’s a bookmarklet, that when launched, displays a box overlaid on the page, with all the information Ma.gnolia.com can gather about that page, including user comments and ratings. Again, indispensable.
- Lots of feeds: Feeds, both Atom and RSS, for everything you might possibly want as a feed. That rocks.
With that said, there are a few problems, too:
- No suggested tags. When tagging a page, [Del.icio.us] uses Yahoo’s index (I assume) to retrieve the keywords of that page. Ma.gnolia.com should do the same: fetch and parse the page, and come up with a list of suggested tags. I really miss this feature. (Update: John Stansbury reminds me in the comments, that, if I’d been paying attention, I’d have noticed that Ma.gnolia.com Roots (above) actually includes a list of suggested tags. Thanks, John!)
Err, well, only one problem, then, I guess. Seriously, I can’t think of any other reasons not to use Ma.gnolia.com. It’ll even import your bookmarks from Del.icio.us!
Feedback
Do any of you non-existent readers use Ma.gnolia.com? Or, do you think Del.icio.us is better? Maybe there is some other social bookmarking app I don’t know about? Let me know in the comments!
RSS
Comments
Funny how I found your
Funny how I found your website after considering switching over from del.icio.us to Ma.gnolia. I’ve been a member of both for a long time, but I’m active on del.icio.us only. I got back to this “discussion” after getting into some OpenID considerations, and Ma.gnolia being one of the main sites advertising OpenID I had myself rechecking it. :)
Seriously, I enjoy the Ma.gnolia user experience a whole lot, because it’s closer to my own idea of webdesign and development. Del.icio.us just “feels”/looks dated as to a looks standpoint.
But the direct referal here was Google search when I searched for “Ma.gnolia suggested tags”. :) You were first on the search and I have to agree with you: it’s the most missed feature. I’m still considering moving over to Ma.gnolia, but I might not until they get that feature… :/
Thanks for sharing your thoughts with your… non-existent readers! ;) That’s the web… and Google! :)
Cheers m8
Ben, thanks very much for
Ben, thanks very much for the writeup, and we’re very glad to have you as a member. I’m happy to say that suggested tags is on the way. We’re currently replacing our search engine with something that will be able to deliver those tags from other people fast enough to be useful. Moreover, with searches (explicit from a person and implicit in browsing lists and so on) being such a critical component of what Ma.gnolia does, we expect this will improve performance and open up new possibilities throughout the application. But one of the first changes will be to bring in suggested tags, as we also think it’s an important part of social information building and sharing.
Thanks again - I hope you’ll ping us if you see other things that can be improved.
I’ve used both platforms
I’ve used both platforms quite a bit, and I went with Ma.gnolia because of the things you detailed. But mostly because of the truly awesome Roots javascript. The other benefits (thumbnails, ratings, thanks) are even more reason.
The one thing many people (like me) lament when first using Ma.gnolia is that “suggested tags” feature is missing. It’s not that it doesn’t exist, it’s just — and it took me until tonight to grok — not used. If you use the Roots on this page, you’ll see in the second section something called “Top Tags.” I’ve been copying and pasting them into my post window since I figured out that would be a nice way to get some quick tags.
What I didn’t first realize was that this is what del.icio.us does. For example, I spend a good deal of time when I get that del.icio.us feeling again hunting down this other button. It’s more like the Ma.gnolia, pop–up window. Tonight I confirmed what I figured was going on.
If you use that same pop–up javascript, it’ll give you both popular and recommended tags (you’ll need a del.icio.us account or it’ll hassle you to get one). If you look on the del.icio.us history page you’ll see the first seven or so tags are used to create the “popular tags.” The “suggested tags” are merely the tags that are popular that you already use. I have no idea what kind of resources it would take, but that’s how they do it, and sticking that in the Ma.gnolia Marker is what I think people (like me) want.
well, that’s a nice review
well, that’s a nice review and quite a promise from Todd and his fine pals at Ma.Gnolia, I can’t wait for it !!
On a personal basis I use both services via Flock, sharing directly the tags from it’s interface, or manually, tagging first the bookmark on del.icio.us using my tags and the proposed ones I find appropriate and then copying them to ma.gnolia directories manually (SIGH !) adding the colon (it’s , right ?) between each of the used tags!
Cheers!
John - you have a point:
John - you have a point: Roots does include a list of similar tags, I’m not sure how I missed this. I’ve updated the post, thanks for the feedback!
On a personal basis I use
On a personal basis I use both services via Flock, sharing directly the tags from it’s interface, or manually, tagging first the bookmark on del.icio.us using my tags and the proposed ones I find appropriate and then copying them to ma.gnolia directories manually (SIGH !) adding the colon (it’s , right ?) between each of the used tags!
Post new comment