For what it's worth, the basic reasons I use some form of bookmarks are:
1. I want to go back to a website for new content; or
2. I want to store content to read/view later; or
3. I want to share something with someone else who is not sitting next to me.
So for 1, I really want a link, for 2 I really want a local copy (in case the page moves or is removed), and for 3 I'd like to send someone (or a group of people) a copy (for the same reason as 2, but usually the time interval is shorter so it's less likely that the page will vanish, so a link is more acceptable). Sync across machines is also great for 1 and 2, not so much for 3.
I really haven't found a browser-based tool that I like for any of these. I mostly use email for 2 and 3 because I can copy and paste text or attach a file to store a copy of the content. For 1 I usually type in the URL because it works with any browser, but I do keep some bookmarks for sites I rarely visit.
A dedicated tool could do a lot better than my email client, though. Even though I want the original content, I'd usually like to know if it's been updated or changed since I last looked at it (imagine storing a copy of this comment thread, for example), which would be easy to do within firefox but is impossible as I have it set up.
Edit: I forgot to mention the other nice feature of email: most clients can easily handle thousands of emails easily -- they do it by: search; folders/tagging; threading; sorting by different columns; and I'm sure I'm missing others. So those might be other organization schemes to consider; I don't think that organizing the bookmarks into piles is going to scale well.
Comments
For what it's worth, the basic reasons I use some form of bookmarks are:
1. I want to go back to a website for new content; or
2. I want to store content to read/view later; or
3. I want to share something with someone else who is not sitting next to me.
So for 1, I really want a link, for 2 I really want a local copy (in case the page moves or is removed), and for 3 I'd like to send someone (or a group of people) a copy (for the same reason as 2, but usually the time interval is shorter so it's less likely that the page will vanish, so a link is more acceptable). Sync across machines is also great for 1 and 2, not so much for 3.
I really haven't found a browser-based tool that I like for any of these. I mostly use email for 2 and 3 because I can copy and paste text or attach a file to store a copy of the content. For 1 I usually type in the URL because it works with any browser, but I do keep some bookmarks for sites I rarely visit.
A dedicated tool could do a lot better than my email client, though. Even though I want the original content, I'd usually like to know if it's been updated or changed since I last looked at it (imagine storing a copy of this comment thread, for example), which would be easy to do within firefox but is impossible as I have it set up.
Edit: I forgot to mention the other nice feature of email: most clients can easily handle thousands of emails easily -- they do it by: search; folders/tagging; threading; sorting by different columns; and I'm sure I'm missing others. So those might be other organization schemes to consider; I don't think that organizing the bookmarks into piles is going to scale well.