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Ask HN: Bookmarking Tool for Developers – Yay or Nay?

I wanted to pass an idea by you folks and ask for a little bit of help.

I'm currently trying to figure out if a bookmarking service for software developers would make sense. When I tell people my idea I generally get asked; "do developers bookmark differently than anyone else?". And the answer is no. But I do believe (and am in the process of verifying) that developers bookmark to a greater extent than most other people, particularly web developers. So I want to build a bookmarking tool specifically for developers although initially I don't expect any significant differences between my tool and a more general bookmarking tool. But as I progresses I expect to discover what developer centric features people find useful (this might just be simple things like integration with collaboration tools). This idea has come about because I still, after many years, find the bookmarking process lacking (and I'm familiar with various options for bookmarking).

So at the moment I'm looking for feedback on whether people think if there is any value to this idea – so any comments on that would be appreciated. Also I'm trying to figure out what developers think of bookmarking and how they currently do it; so I created a survey but at this point I've exhausted my own network so I'm in need of some developers who like helping others out! I'll be releasing the results of said survey once it's completed so I think it will hopefully be useful for others regardless of whether I continue with my idea or not.

The survey is at the following address:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/dev-bookmark-survey

Thanks for reading!

( 12 comments | 4 points | on HN )
Re:Ask HN: Bookmarking Tool for Developers – Yay or Nay? by spocked on Tuesday April 14, 2015 @07:57AM (#9373486)
Just finished filling the survey. Next time, try to not force the user to select the "Never" option. If I have not used that OS or browser, I will simply skip over it.
Re:Ask HN: Bookmarking Tool for Developers – Yay or Nay? by aswerty on Tuesday April 14, 2015 @08:33AM (#9373660)
That's a good point, thanks for filling it out.
Re:Ask HN: Bookmarking Tool for Developers – Yay or Nay? by Meltdown on Tuesday April 14, 2015 @11:45AM (#9375094)
I use Flipboard for my bookmarks, I have about 10 private mags that I flip bookmarks into.

I've found saving bookmarks just to my browser tends to be a bit of a black hole, stuff goes in, but never comes out.

Re:Ask HN: Bookmarking Tool for Developers – Yay or Nay? by aswerty on Tuesday April 14, 2015 @12:38PM (#9375470)
Yeah the black hole problem is definitely something a lot of people bump into. I hadn't actually come across Flipboard before, seems similar to Pinterest.
Re:Ask HN: Bookmarking Tool for Developers – Yay or Nay? by notduncansmith on Wednesday April 15, 2015 @09:34AM (#9380828)
I use Raindrop.io (Mac app + Chrome extension) for all of my bookmarking, and it's been really great. Easy to use, looks nice, has great search.
Re:Ask HN: Bookmarking Tool for Developers – Yay or Nay? by aswerty on Wednesday April 15, 2015 @03:49PM (#9383594)
I love their name! Like Dragdis they definitely seem like a nice alternative to the in-browser functionality.
Re:Ask HN: Bookmarking Tool for Developers – Yay or Nay? by outericky on Tuesday April 14, 2015 @09:17AM (#9373945)
I've been using Dragdis here and there. But not religiously. It is better than traditional bookmarking in my opinion.
Re:Ask HN: Bookmarking Tool for Developers – Yay or Nay? by aswerty on Tuesday April 14, 2015 @09:45AM (#9374149)
Yeah Dragdis seems to be one of the better ones.
Re:Ask HN: Bookmarking Tool for Developers – Yay or Nay? by outericky on Tuesday April 14, 2015 @09:47AM (#9374167)
The main reason being that I can easily save images/video easily. Links are easy enough with alternate ways.
Re:Ask HN: Bookmarking Tool for Developers – Yay or Nay? by 1123581321 on Tuesday April 14, 2015 @12:56PM (#9375609)
I paid a one-time fee for Pinboard and the survey doesn't have an option for one-time payments.
Re:Ask HN: Bookmarking Tool for Developers – Yay or Nay? by aswerty on Tuesday April 14, 2015 @04:26PM (#9377076)
That's a good point. I knew that was how Pinboard worked but I guess it slipped my mind. Having catch all survey questions is more work than it looks! Thanks for your time, much appreciated.
Re:Ask HN: Bookmarking Tool for Developers – Yay or Nay? by jason_wurzel on Tuesday April 14, 2015 @03:08PM (#9376558)
i use evernote a lot for bookmarking (often saving only urls, or whole articles), bookmarking with the browser tends to be a black hole for me too, as others said. with evernote i can assign tags to the bookmarked item, so i can find related things better later on.