Google Bookmarks: Adding Easier, Gunning for del.icio.us

Some Backstory...

At some point after lauching Google Personalized Search (which includes the nifty Search History feature), Google also added Bookmarks. Bookmarks allows users to store their favorite sites with their Google account instead of in the web browser. This is particularly useful for people like myself who frequently use 3 or 4 computers and thus always have my bookmarks out of sync. However, when the feature launched, bookmarking sites was a clunky process. Google really had a lot of ground to make up against del.icio.us (a recent Yahoo acquisition). Del.icio.us allows users to bookmark and tag sites, and share bookmarks with each other, also the most tagged sites appear on del.icio.us's homepage, which is a very cool way to take a quick glance at the pulse of the web. Del.icio.us also has been around much longer so there are all sorts of browser plug-ins that make it easy to tag, share, and do other del.icio.us stuff. I've been using del.icio.us for some time and really enjoy it. However, Google Bookmarks is still very attractive to me.

Google >? del.icio.us

As I discussed before in my previous Google Bookmarks article, bookmarks is a pretty crucial thing for Google to be working on. By Google storing which sites users bookmark and how those sites are labeled, Google could futher improve search results. Which, since Google is still the search leader, will help the most web searchers. Obviously, Yahoo (del.icio.us's parent company) could do the same thing, but I haven't read anything to indicate they are. Given del.ico.us was an acquisition, there may be some technical and other logistic hurdles to overcome. So the fact that Google has done it all in-house could allow them to leap-frog Yahoo. Also, as much as I love del.icio.us, having one fewer account and service to login to is always a plus. I've had a Google account for years, and in my opinion, the more I can do with it, the better.

It seems ineveitable that Google will offer an "import from del.icio.us" function, which they should definitely do ASAP. But will del.icio.us users with Google accounts remain loyal to del.icio.us or will they switch to Google Bookmarks? I have to say, if I could quickly import my del.icio.us sites into Google Bookmarks, that would get me to switch cold turkey. It would also get me to use the Google Personalized Search, and Search History wich I tend to forget I have.

Don't want to leave a comment? reach me at getgreg at gmail dot com.