Clipmarks

The team at Clipmarks recently launched a significant refresh of the site in terms of both look and feel. This is the main home page where you can now search the site, and see a tag cloud view of the most popular tags on the site.

To make the best use of Clipmarks you've got to get the tools. A quick install later (in under a minute on a broadband connection you can download and settle the tool icons comfortably onto your browser's(s') main menu bar)you'll be clip-ready. While the Clipmarks tool icons look a little different for each of the three supported browsers, they all work the same way.

A quick sign up (just a few fields), download, then go under your view menu and a click or two later you've got all you need to clip, share, and save to your heart's content.

Clicking on the paperclip icon while visiting a site using Firefox puts you into clipping mode. After that clicking anywhere on the screen puts a colored highlight bar around that content. Dragging your mouse will select more or less of the page depending on the direction.

The Clipmarks IE controls work the same way as those for Firefox.

Let's take a quick look at how clipping with Clipmarks works. You've installed the Clipmarks tools and now you've arrived at a site that you're interested in clipping (superior to bookmarking in a lot of ways---you'll know why it was you saved something because you'll actually have a copy of it on Clipmarks); take for example, this fascinating Web site on the discovery, archaeological investigation, and excavation of Florida's oldest known shipwreck.

With just two clicks we've selected and clipped this graphic, or...

...or we could instead drag the mouse a bit on the first click and extend our clip around the whole page window, or...

...or we could even select the entire screen for clipping.

If you prefer, you can right-click while clipping. That brings up this handy widget that allows you easy control over how much of a Web page you clip using the slider bar. Dragging the slider bar upward will select more of the page.

As part of the recent Clipmarks Web site upgrade, tabs for public, hot, (clip)board, and mine have been replaced with buttons at the top of the page.

When you click under the "mine" button while logged into the Clipmarks Web site you'll see all your own clips. On the far left are the tags you've used displayed in a cloud view. To the right of that in the middle pane are a synopsis of your clips, and on the far right is the actual clip (whichever you've one you've clicked on the middle pane). Note that the source page for your clip (and those under any of the other categories) is prominently displayed at the top right.

Under the hot tab are the most popular clips of the hour that have been sorted based on an algorithm that takes multiple clip attributes into account. While some clippers are put off with what they describe as a competitive atmosphere with this category, others see this view as an easy way to zoom in anything recently posted by their favorite clippers. Clicking on the "hot tags" icon on the extreme lower left will expand a list of the tags assigned to the hottest clips.

Anything you've clipped, popped, or commented on, as well as the clippers you follow, and the tags you follow appear under the clipboard category.

Clips under the public category are just that, clips people have made public listed by default in chronilogical order (most recent at the top). Note that you have multiple ways of sorting the clips you've displayed (three sort options boxes listed above the center pane). Again, everything you clip is by default private. At the time you clip something you are given the option of making it public or keeping it private with a check box.

Here we've got a cloud view of the most popular public tags. Many folks will already be familiar with cloud views of tags from other sites they've visited; basically the most popular tags have the fattest font, less popular tags a smaller one.

No matter which category you are under you can change the way clips are sorted and then displayed based on the three check boxes listed here. These include chronilogical, most popped, and most commented on. Leaving all three checked results in sorting based on the choices left to right.

A Clipmarks feature that's great for those with their own blogs is the ClipRoll. With it you can create and cut and paste links from a particular clip to your own blog.

In addition to creating a ClipRoll (see previous screen) there are a variety of other controls you can put to use on clips---no matter what category you are under. You can set up an RSS feed based on particular tags or clippers you are following or interested in following, as well as save clips locally or print them out.