Bookmarking made easier

By Eric Auchard

SAN FRANCISCO: Bookmarks have become the cluttered closets of Web surfers.

Internet media company Yahoo Inc. is looking to give users an easier way to organize, search for and share favourite sites or Web pages, the company said on Tuesday.

It is also introducing a simplified version of the Yahoo toolbar that features a one-click way to bookmark Web pages. The toolbar is a menu of key Yahoo services that is embedded along the top border of Web browser software programs.

The moves are part of a careful, go-slow plan by Yahoo to convince millions more of its users to embrace the new generation of Web surfing tools that allow consumers to share what they learn with friends or colleagues.

These technologies are known as collaborative filtering or social media. Yet, while popular among tech-savvy users, the vast majority of casual Web users still find such technologies confusing to use.

"We expect that, over time, users will start sharing bookmarks more readily," said Tomi Poutanen, product manager of Yahoo's social search business. "There is a lot more that can be done around bookmarks than what is (now) done," he said.

Bookmarks, also known as favourites, are the main way Web users remember interesting sites to return to later. They are a basic feature of browser software. The big drawback is most users have no idea how to save bookmarks when they switch computers or browsers, nor how to share bookmarks with friends.

Yahoo already offers several alternatives. Yahoo Bookmarks, a kind of personal online storage locker, gives individuals access to favourite sites from any Web-connected computers.

Del.icio.us was acquired by Yahoo in late 2005 and attracts a devoted crowd of sophisticated Internet users. But it is a tough sell to mainstream audiences. It's grown from 300,000 users late last year to more than 1 million. By contrast, Yahoo Bookmarks service for individual users has 20 million users.

The new version of Yahoo Bookmarks at http://new.bookmarks.yahoo.com, offers several improvements on organizing bookmarks into folders to make them easier to find. But it also encourages users to try "tagging," a more modern way of organizing information that relies on users assigning keywords to personally important information to make it easier to search for and find such information again later.

Yahoo Bookmarks also introduces the concept of social bookmarks by allowing users to send favourite links to friends via built-in e-mail or instant message links. It gives more visual clues than does Del.icio.us to help users learn how to "tag," or identify favorite sites. "It provides a way for people to become more comfortable with tagging," Poutanen said.

This is the middle ground that Yahoo finds itself in as it encourages people to embrace the emerging social Web era, said Gartner technology analyst Mike McGuire. "Yahoo is trying to create a transition path for its mainstream users," he said.

Yahoo officials are happy to describe the new technology as transitional -- a compromise between the clunky convenience of older bookmark services and the new world of shared bookmarks that have many advantages that leave most users confused.

Call it Web 1.5 -- half way between the static Web pages and so-called Web 2.0, the new generation of Internet technology that encourages users to interact through browsers with other users to share what they know.

The new bookmark and toolbar products are available in the United States, Germany and Taiwan, with other countries to follow.

The new Yahoo toolbar allows users to create an unlimited number of personalised link buttons for fast access to favourite Web sites. Further details are at http://toolbar.yahoo.com/.