Centralized web-based bookmarking service

Backflip
http://www.backflip.com
>> Organize, collect, leverage power of all websites visited

Backflip is an online organizer for your bookmarks. You can either upload your existing ones, organize them into a Yahoo-like directory (Backflip also gives you support in doing this) or bookmark your favorite sites by clicking on the BackflipIt! button that you can easily add to any 4.x browser. By sharing the same login, people in a team can add bookmarks, describe them and organize them by categories, and other team members can be notified by email that a new link has been added to Backflip.

It's an easy way to share, organize and search bookmarks leading to resources and tools relevant to projects that are carried out by distributed workgroups.

Though the idea is certainly good, I think the implementation still leaves a lot to be desired. I particularly do not like the lag time required to have the backflip on-line dialog box pop-up and the overall time it requires to add an extra site, not even mentioning an extra folder. Though I can see this not being a problem with anybody having a fast connection, I would certainly see an opportunity here to clone and improve this insightful idea.

If the system relied on a small footprint plug-in or application, and if it would do its dirty work locally on my computer, and only then and in the background, would upload my choices and selections, I would certainly be going to use this service on a steady basis.

 

 

Just before I clicked on the send button pusj\hing this e-zine issue in all of your e-mail boxes, Backflip, did make a remarkable improvement to his interface and interactive functionalities. The new feature allows you to:
- Search your Backflip account. Search the Web.
- Get instant, always-there access to your Backflip folders.
- Backflip cool Web pages, faster.
Basically you are getting a customized version of the IE search pane devoted only to Backflip bookmarks. Though I find this quite handy, it still is far for providing with the immediacy and instant response time I would expect from such a functionality. How about providing me with the ability to drag and drop bookmarks from one category/folder to another? Now I have to fully delete and re-add the bookmark to the new category! I further would see space for major improvement in the categorization process and in what contributions from users can create in that direction. I see lots of potential yet to be realized.