Kippt (YC S12) Launches Bookmarking App To Become The GitHub For Links

http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/14/yc-backed-kippt-goes-collaborative/

by jorde • 14 years ago

78 33 14 years ago

techcrunch.com

dm8• 14 years ago

I really love the interface. Congrats!

Any idea about mobile integration?

jorde4• 14 years ago

We know about few third party clients that are build on top of our API. Hopefully they will be released soon as we would also like to use them (still quite busy with the site).

tosh• 14 years ago

The UI is very very slick, saw them a few weeks back featured as one of the twitter bootstrap example apps. Reminds me of the warm fuzzy feeling I got when I first used Path.

I especially like the introduction flow for connecting accounts (fb, twitter) and the call to action to install the browser extension in the end.

kudos.

smiler2• 14 years ago

Yup this is a really good example. Only thing I didn't understand was I signed up with FB so I had a verified e-mail address, yet they asked me to put one in - the default of my FB one would have been a little bit better

jorde4• 14 years ago

We should get it via the API. Thanks for the tip!

jbigelow76• 14 years ago

I found that annoying too when signing up with Twitter, if I knew I would still have to create a username and provide an email address I would have skipped signing in with Twitter.

nodesocket• 14 years ago

Nice use of bootstrap, but modifying it on the homepage as well. Great design.

enra2• 14 years ago

Thanks! Bootstrap has been a big help for us

jbenz• 14 years ago

I discovered Kippt through the front page of Bootstrap (it's one of the main thumbnails - I would say the best looking thumbnail - under "Built With Bootstrap"). Has that been a good source of users for you guys? Or not at all?

spindritf• 14 years ago

I see there's a wide range of import options, is or will there be a way to export bookmarks too?

jorde4• 14 years ago

We have a export feature for regular bookmark file format as well as full API so you can access all of your data.

drac2• 14 years ago

import isn't instantaneous - I uploaded my delicious links, and was promised an email when import finished.

Still no email (an hour or so later) :) - tbf, there's about 3000 links

jorde4• 14 years ago

Shouldn't take that long. Could you email me at hello@kippt.com with your username and I'll take a look?

DanBC• 14 years ago

This could be popular with readers of text erotica. See, for example, the Pinboard spikes when delicious changed.

(http://blog.pinboard.in/2011/10/the_fans_are_all_right/)

I think it's a cool idea. It could be really useful for some things I do. I'm glad to know about it.

I have no freaking idea what you mean when you say "The github for links" - and the people I'd want to use this with will never have heard of github.

nosignal2• 14 years ago

That blog post was fascinating — I had no idea the Fan community was so mobilised (nor that they were even a community cohesive enough to have a name, nor that the name was Fans).

I wonder how many other comprehensive communities exist like this, somewhat under the radar, serving themselves.

delinka• 14 years ago

"I have no freaking idea..."

Right there with you. I can't help but be facetious: "So the links are all editable by anyone? Do I have to create a repository for all my links? If links don't constantly change, why are we tracking changes to links? Heck, why are we letting people edit them?"

smiler2• 14 years ago

I love the UI and everything about this, however it's another free service I won't be using - no revenue therefore highly likely these guys will get acquired as a talent acqusition and then the service will be shut down.

nathan_long2• 14 years ago

Pinboard.in is similar but has a one-time fee. I use and love it.

revorad2• 14 years ago

You need to improve your onboarding process.

The sign up process is slick but way too long. Need to provide some instant gratification.

Just because I like to check out new products, I was patient and did all the steps properly. But, in the end I just got a blank screen saying "this list is empty". That was pretty disappointing. Then I imported my Instapaper articles and still the list is empty.

If speed is an issue, why don't you just show me "today's popular articles" or just fetch the last 10 links I shared on twitter? Show me something or I might never come back. This is not exactly a space without competition.

Edit: I'd like to be able to save articles with a single click. The 2-click save thing is what everyone gets wrong and why I end up using Instapaper for all my bookmarking.

deanacus• 14 years ago

There are one-click bookmark lets for each list you create, as well as your inbox and read later list, on the tools page[1], under Quick Bookmarklets

[1] https://kippt.com/tools/

revorad2• 14 years ago

Thanks, I didn't see that. Clicking on a list-specific bookmarklet didn't seem to work. So, I clicked a few times and then found that article saved multiple times. You need to provide some visual feedback while saving the article, otherwise it looks like it's not doing anything. Also, de-duplication would be nice.

Generally, I don't like managing bookmarks. I think that's what search is for. I should just be able to save pages with one click and then find them easily with search later on.

Bookmarklets for each list seem way too complicated. I don't want to have more than one kippt bookmarklet on my toolbar. So, I'll end up using your app just with one list bookmarklet.

If you find this is common among your users, then this could be the basis of a freemium model. Users like me with simple needs can use it for free. People who want multiple lists can pay a small fee.

If you're aiming the product only at power users who don't mind lots of complex options, then you can probably ignore my comments.

nosignal2• 14 years ago

Am I the only one who doesn't use bookmarks?

99% of the time, if I need to find something I've read before, I'll just search for it & find it.

The exception to this is when I was working support and had several product spec sheets & other reference pages bookmarked for quick access to email links to customers. Even while I was at Uni, I'd download articles to PDF.

On the rare occasion that I like or am interested in something enough to want to bookmark it, I find I rarely actually come back to it. Just looking now, in my Bookmarks menu I have a couple of folders — apparently the result of me saying "save all open tabs as bookmarks" in the hope of coming back to it later — but never having done so.

Long-form articles I come across while I should be doing something else go to Instapaper to be read later (is this what people use bookmarks for?). Even then realistically I only actually read 20% of them.

Anything I really think a friend of mine should read, I email a link there & then. This is a 1- or 2- click operation.

Anything that I think is just too interesting/funny/important to keep to one or two friends, I put on Twitter, or here on HN. (I guess that ends up being a kind of bookmark service; I have scoured my submitted stories (and upvoted stories) to find them again.)

For my frequently visited sites without RSS, the browser URL bar is my friend - just start typing & it autocompletes. The only bookmark in my bookmark bar is the "Instapaper: Read Later" bookmarklet.

What does everyone else use bookmarks for? Is there some awesome use case I've been ignorant to since 1996? Am I just a freak for never wanting to revisit things?

Dn_Ab• 14 years ago

Am I the only one who doesn't use bookmarks?

No. I do, but there are a lot of people with different approaches, so all that can be said is the number who bookmark is large and the number who don't is also large.

What does everyone else use bookmarks for?

Presumably to save effort and as a form of external memory. In my case, I bookmark with probability proportional to how difficult it was to find. In particular, I only ever bookmark knowledge and information and do not use bookmarks as a storage for trinkets (alas the things which interest me are likely dull graphite to most). Also, I have not done any tests but it appears google searches are non stationary - old search terms do not always return the same results. Finally, for me, it is a very frustrating experience when I am looking for something I know is there.

Is there some awesome use case I've been ignorant to since 1996?

Yes, but the answers are subjective and incommensurable with the ranking criteria of those who would ask a question like that.

Am I just a freak for never wanting to revisit things?

No. The word freak is only part of the used vocabulary of those severely lacking imagination (to clarify, this is not targeted at you but those in habit of calling people freaks).

biot• 14 years ago

On more than one occasion I've run across developer documentation with a specific class buried somewhere that wasn't easily searchable using Google. Typically these have been those multiframe one-class-per-page javadoc style API references. It's quite helpful to bookmark the root frame and have it available at a click... great for exploring a new API when you may not want a specific search.

nathan_long2• 14 years ago

I use Pinboard.in a lot. I do not use it for "frequently visited sites"; I can type the URL faster than clicking, especially with autocompletion.

For me, bookmarks are mainly for 1) things I may want again and only vaguely remember 2) articles I'd like to read when I have time.

Examples of stuff I've recently pinned:

- An article that has a quote from Linus Torvalds that I'd like to use in a blog post I may write someday - The best Inkscape tutorial I found in maybe 10 minutes of searching - An HN article comparing A/B testing with multi-armed bandit, which is irrelevant to me right now but maybe someday I'll want to read

In each case, I pin that thing, give it whatever tags make sense to me, and possibly write a quick description.

There are 51,200,000 search results in Google for "Linus." In my personal pinboard, there are 2. Guess which I'm going to try first if I vaguely remember something I once saw about him?

Probably 80% of my bookmarks are never used, which is another reason why the "tag now, search later" approach is so nice to me; those neglected ones aren't cluttering up a GUI, making it hard for me to find what I want right now; searching cuts right to what I want.

Pinboard.in is fast, simple, super-effective, cheap (but not free, so I'm the customer), and cross-browser (since it's a bookmarklet).

It also lets you mark everything private by default, which I like. Too many things are social these days. I don't want to broadcast my opinions about sites; I just want to find things again later.

It's one of my favorite tools.

gdilla• 14 years ago

Dittpo. Pinboard.in rocks. It's like what bookmarks should be - cloud based, taggable, and easily searchable. Also it allows you to just shove URLs into a read later category. I do find myself going back to it - something will come up at work and I'll remember, oh i read something about that approach that was very insightful, and just quickly grab it to share with others or refresh my memory.

g0su• 14 years ago

Good job so far, I really like it. May I ask what is the business model behind it?

alttab• 14 years ago

Maybe techcrunch isn't doing this app justice, but I'm at a loss why we are re-doing bookmarks... again. Maybe its just me, maybe I'm so well organized that I only need a place to jot down notes on paper - but I honestly do not see that many people having so much pain for freaking bookmarks that we need another social X for Y start-up that ultimately won't be compelling enough to change users behavior.

I imagine there are users out there that would benefit from this, but is it enough to run a business? I agree with another commentor that this seems more like a talent acquisition play than an actually viable business.

As I said I'm probably not the target market, but the tech crunch article made me cringe a little bit. When I see stuff like this I wonder if there is a funding bubble.

Kudos definitely to the engineers that put this together. Clearly a lot of thought went into the product. For me though, it left a "why are they solving this problem, AGAIN" taste in my mouth.

arihant• 14 years ago

Lot of negativity in the comments. Maybe power users don't use bookmarks as much. But I have seen people using browser auto-complete with a mouse. There is a lot that can be done when it comes to empowering the regular user to use web better.

pasbesoin• 14 years ago

The best bookmarking experience I've had was with PowerMarks (commercial product by Kaylon, long discontinued).

Anyone doing bookmarking would serve themselves by having a look at it -- even though today everything seeks to be "as a service" as opposed to a local application.

sandollars• 14 years ago

OMFG Kippt just tweeted my bookmarks :O

Kippt (YC S12) Launches Bookmarking App To Become The GitHub For Links

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