These things. These digital tools.
They get under my skin, and into my workflow, and when they get useful, I get enthusiastic, and wanna share with you.
The concept is not new. You’re browsing, and you run across a goldmine of information that you gotta save, but you either have no time to read it on the spot, or you just wanna save it back as a resource. For years, developers have come up with different versions of a solution.
The first one I remember seeing was “Read it Later“…a real obvious choice for a name, but it worked, and was helpful. It’s still available as a browser extension, and is fairly rudimentary.
Another one quite a bit like that is “Read Later“. Again, a browser extension you just click on while you’re in a page you want to save, and it stores it for you. (just search for these in your list of browser extensions…both are available in Chrome fer shure)
Pocket is another step up in sophistication, with all sorts of features to let you save, store, categorize, share, and tag your saved pages. The free version is just fine, but you can pay for even more tools if you want.
Instapaper has been my favorite webpage saving utility for years, now. I’ve subscribed at a ridiculously low yearly fee, and with the Instapaper extension, I can quickly save my web-browsing indefinitely at their website. Like Pocket, Instapaper will let you categorize, sort, share, tag, move, and otherwise manipulate your saved entries to your workflow. Many a blog you’ve read here has come from an Instapaper-saved idea.
But a new guy on the block may just steal my attention.
Bublup is much more intuitive because of it’s visual stunning graphical user interface. That, plus the fact it’s also on my smartphone, it’s fast, and it’s just…fun! Bublup does all the things Pocket and Instapaper does, but just prettier…using an almost Pinterest-like page to display the stuff you’ve saved.
You may or may not like the fact that in addition to using if from a browser extension button from the top of your browser toolbar, Bublup will also insert an unobtrusive floating tool wherever you go on the web, from which you can save stuff, go directly to your account page at Bublup, or see pages of similar content presented to you.
You can sort your entries manually, by date, or alphabetically…create new categories, email entries to your account, and so much more. And I haven’t paid one red cent for any of those features!
Stuff you save to Bublup on your smartphone immediately shows up on your web account and vice-versa.
The more I use Bublup, the more I like it…and I’m not shilling for them or otherwise getting a kickback. I just love their product!
Do tools like this only encourage procrastination?
Probably…but at least you’ll be sluffing-off in organizational style!
CourVO
and….