BlueDot tries to make a mark in social bookmarking

Is Web bookmark sharing an add-on feature or a whole new product category with a broad range of uses? Talk to the folks at start up a BlueDot and the answer is the latter.

The company, which was formed in 2004, has built a system for publishing and sharing Web links.

In addition to pointing people to a video, news article, or other item, BlueDot is set up so that people can easily add comments. It also automatically generates a text summary and grabs images based on the information you are linking to.

The company's chief cheerleading officer (yes, that's his real title) who acts as a co-CEO of the company is Mike Koss who spent nearly 20 years at Microsoft. Many of the Seattle-area company's employees and advisers worked at Microsoft.

Koss said that social bookmarking is not limited to friends pointing out latest goofy YouTube video. He envisions people using shared bookmarks among co-workers and friends for a wide range of services.

"Sharing Web content is obvious if you look at YouTube where part of their value is social networking. But why not share everything? Consumers have a need for a mainstream tool for sharing all Web content," he said.

Koss admitted that it's a crowded field with Yahoo, which bought delicious, being the leader. But he thinks it's a business that can grow to a substantial size.

Last month the company started experimenting with advertising.

"We think we can definitely make money. Every user creating a dot (a shared link) is indicating their interests, what their affiliations are, and what kind of content alike. Those metrics are valuable to advertisers," he said.