Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

I`ve been pondering the reasons I bookmark a site. Right now, I have so damn many bookmarks, I`m always reorganizing, cleaning out, and so forth. My browser isn`t FireFox 3.x, so I`m not sure if that latest version allows you to search your bookmarks, but I can`t do it.

I`m thinking about it, and figured on these reasons. If you have some more, great, you can list them below:

• I find a product I want but can`t afford to buy just yet, so I bookmark the site.
• I find a site that answered one question I had, then saw so much other great information about related issues I want to go back there.
• I have a site, like SuN, where I`m constantly going there to participate or be involved in some regular fashion.
• I have a site like WikiPedia where I use it as a quick reference.

When I bookmark a site, I usually also tell at least one or two other people. If I was excited enough to keep track of the site, it almost always is a place other people I know would want to hear about.

So what about your site?

I look at all sorts of sites, not only in general, but as people put up Web critique requests. Does the site meet ANY of the above criteria? Rarely.

Think about the last band you went to see live. It could be a concert or a nightclub act, but think about it. Then imagine telling me I should go see them. What would you say in a couple of sentences that would get me interested?

You`d likely get fired up about 1 identifying and unique or unusual "thing" regarding that band. "Oh....you`ve GOTTA see this band! They`ve got the most amazing light show!" Or fill in the blank, "The most amazing............"

What`s amazing about your site? What`s that 1 thing people would remember an hour after they`ve shut down the computer? If they`re looking at a bookmark that says, "Super Web site Worth Bookmarking," what visual will they call to mind?

When you turn people on to Startup Nation, what do you say? Do you go on and on for ten minutes? Or do you quickly summarize, and tell them that it`s a site all about startup entrepreneurs trying to create a new business? Do you tell them about the amazing graphics, cool Flash! animations, and awesome buttons?

So how `bout it: Would you bookmark your own Web site, then excitedly recommend it to a couple of people at dinner tomorrow night?

Hi Craig,
To answer your question, I never bookmark most important web sites. Here`s why:
1) I use them so often that they`re always at the top of the autocomplete list in my Firefox.
2) I remember the domains, and sometimes it`s faster to type it in then to search in bookmarks.
I usually bookmark sites that
1) Have something of interest but I don`t need it immediately
2) Something pretty important that I only use so often
3) Deep links, links with subdomains or URL`s with IP`s or protocols.

And no, I don`t bookmark my own sites. I don`t see any value in bookmarking other then no need to remember valuable but seldom used URL`s. `Cause from your post it sounds like you have to be really emphatic about your sites - so emphatic that you would bookmark them. My sites, for example, are pretty pieces, for the most part, but they`re just products that other people use, or make money on, there`s nothing magical about them.

Okay...so would I bookmark your site? (hmm...probably not. I`m using Firefox 1.x, mostly `cause I haven`t had time to change, and see only a blank page. IE works, not FF).

However, that`s not really the point. Would YOU bookmark your own site, based on your above criteria? If so, which of them would be the reason for that bookmarking? And what particularly "caught your attention" when you looked at your site the first day after you forgot that you made it. :-D

Computers shut down ???????

Well, I mean like a power failure along the eastern seaboard, a nuclear war, or an earthquake that takes out all of California.....things like that.

I`ve found that when you open your browser, click the bookmark menu item, then click a bookmark, it does create a different feel to the following events.

Of ALL the problems we discuss here on SuN, I think the most widespread is the disconnect between the business owner and the *perception* of their own business from a customer`s viewpoint.

Craig, you sound like there`s something esoteric about using bookmarks.   

As far as my own site - I think all of them are great but on a daily basis I am not experiencing a sense of awe by seeing ANY websites. They are all just web sites. Most web sites on the web are boring and crappy. Good design is very rare. Usable web sites are also very rare. Finding a great web site is like seeing a Lamborghini while driving on PCH in Corona Del Mar - they are very rare even in upscale neighborhoods.

Nope....nothing esoteric at all about using bookmarks. But taking the time to actually bookmark a site means that it stand out in your mind and you`d like to visit it more than once.

This is a question about whether or not anyone looks at their own Web site from someone else`s perspective. Most business owners seem to never do that at all.

Craig, you said "like to visit" - I bookmark sites that I know I might need to visit. You see, for me web sites are not paintings or sculptures or other works of art that are timeless and that evoke deepest of my emotions. Internet is not Louvre or Hermitage no matter how highly some web designers think of their work.

But yes I do bookmark some sites that I like visually and I do bookmark them as examples. Other then that and other then having to come back to some sites thatIuse regularly, such as my bank, my server control panel etc., I don`t bookmark sites.

When I have a chest pain, can`t breathe, and say, "I think I`d like to visit a doctor," I`m being polite. It`s not that I have an abstract concept of a journey toward medical enlightment in mind.