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Clipmarks opens up sharing platform, adds multinetwork widgets

Syndicate your social bookmarked content with Clipmarks' new ClipCast feature.

Josh Lowensohn Former Senior Writer
Josh Lowensohn joined CNET in 2006 and now covers Apple. Before that, Josh wrote about everything from new Web start-ups, to remote-controlled robots that watch your house. Prior to joining CNET, Josh covered breaking video game news, as well as reviewing game software. His current console favorite is the Xbox 360.
Josh Lowensohn
2 min read

Yesterday Clipmarks added a new feature called ClipCasting. Like the name would suggest, it's a way to syndicate whatever content you've bookmarked using the proprietary Clipmarks toolbar. In this case, Clipmarks has opened up its service beyond just letting users link to bits of bookmarked Web material, and putting everything in a small widgetized container that can be added to blogs and social networking profiles. Readers can quickly jump back and forth through stories and note individual clips they like, or favorite the entire thing. Incidentally, the previous iteration of the site, which created a separate page for each piece of bookmarked content, is now called "classic view," with the ClipCast pages taking the spotlight.

ClipCasts are basically the content you'd find on a usual Clipmarks page wrapped up into a tiny widget that changes with whatever content you're bookmarking. CNET Networks

To supplement the embeddable version of the widget, there's a new Facebook app that accomplishes the same thing, albeit with less installation work on the part of the user. It'll denote any new piece of content that's been added to the ClipCast in the user's new minifeed for others to see. Likewise, if your friends have the app installed, you'll be able to keep track of whatever bits of content they've bookmarked. Compared with Facebook's standard sharing feature, ClipCast is better in that you can view the content right in the widget without having to venture off the site. It's also nice because your friends don't need to install the app to see the items you've shared.

As a content creator, services like Clipmarks are a mixed blessing. It's a super simple way to share stories with other people, but at the same time it takes potential visitors away from the original article, and moves the power to pick out what bits of content are published away from the original author. I still think Clipmarks has done a great job with ClipCasting. On the surface, it's a lot more approachable than some other bookmarking services that rely on text links alone.

We originally checked out Clipmarks back in late February. Since then, it got snatched up by Forbes Media, which noted that many of its editors had been using the service internally as a way to track and share Web content. Also worth looking at is eSnips, which has a toolbar that lets you grab and share page clippings, along with Yoono (review) and Diigo(review).

I've embedded a ClipCast: