Snipd, a Web clippings service we profiled in September, has just opened up to everyone. Its claim to fame is that it lets you clip bits of the Web including text, images, and videos, all without having to download any software or register for an account. The first time you use it via its tiny bookmarklet, it simply creates an account for you, which can be claimed later on.
One of the things that separates it from something like Evernote, is that your snippings can be found in a public directory--at least by default. It fully supports keeping items private, which you can change later on. However, you're encouraged to publicly share things for the social element. Just like FriendFeed people can follow you and track your latest additions in a chronological flow, complete with comments and favorites.
Besides its utility as a social-clipping tool, Snipd lets you mark whatever page you're on for reading later. This emulates some of the versatility of the popular Firefox Extension Read It Later (which updated this morning). However, in Snipd's case, you get e-mailed the entire page.
Snipd co-founder Alex Schliker tells me the amount of adult content Snipd has brought in has been so substantial that he and his partner Emil Gilliam are working on a separate site called Stripd that will house it all and keep it out of Snipd's public feed. This could end up getting the pair more traffic than Snipd, considering no-one has really filled that market niche.
Snipd's real threat still comes from Evernote and FriendFeed. Evernote has a product that lets you clip standard bits of the Web while offering a viable alternative to paid word processing applications. Meanwhile, FriendFeed brings a large team of developers (including ex-Googlers), which results in a rapid release cycle. It also offers a stream of content that flows even when users are not implicitly using it. To get past these two the best thing Snipd can do is offer better tools to make Web clippings that more engaging to make and read.
See also: Yoono, Clipmarks, JetEye, and Diigo
Snipd lets you clip bits and pieces of a site to share the parts you want.
(Credit: CNET Networks)
At Apple's WWDC a few weeks ago, the crowd was oohing and aahing when Steve Jobs showed off one of Leopard's new features called Web Clip. Web Clip is a feature built into the Leopard version of Apple's Safari browser that lets you take a section of any Web site and turn it into a widget for OS X's Dashboard. WWDC 2007 wasn't the first time Apple had shown off Web Clip. In fact, the feature had been demonstrated at last year's WWDC conference in August, although not during the high-profile keynote.
For Mac users who don't feel like waiting until October to get their hands on Leopard, an enterprising developer has created a widget called Dash Clipping that has nearly identical functionality to Web Clip and runs in Tiger. Users just plug in a URL and the Web page will open up right inside the widget. It's essentially a miniature browser that can be cropped and maneuvered to fit the desired content. Users can also set how often they want the widget to refresh.
Dash Clipping isn't quite as easy to use as Leopard's implementation, as users can't just toggle a Web Clip right from the browser (a feature that's only available in Leopard's version of Safari) or highlight various sections of the page with a neat light-box effect. Also, like Web Clip, it's also only useful with sites that present their content within certain boundaries, such as online crosswords, comic strips, and news sites with fairly standardized layouts like Yahoo and AOL's start pages.
I haven't been able to track down a similar widget for any of the Windows widget engines like Yahoo Widgets or Vista's sidebar. If you find one, please feel free to post it in the TalkBack.
To make your own custom widget out of any part of a Web site, check out Dash Clippings.
(Credit: CNET Networks / Scott Adams)
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