LookSmart buys Furl?

[KeywordMonkey]

According to: http://techdirt.com/articles/20040922/2335212.shtml

LookSmart is buying Furl, which allows you to:

- save articles, pages etc
- share what you find
- access this archive anywhere

An interesting and logical move, providing them with similar capabilities to Ask's new My Jeeves functionality and a way of potentially increasing user loyalty, and users come back to use their archaives and then serach using LookSmart (in theory - they need better results IMHO and to win back webmasters. Somehow.)

Anybody used Furl?

[KeywordMonkey]

http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3411601

[peterpan]

Anybody used Furl?

I gave it a try, but then switched to Simpy (http://www.simpy.com/), which I like better. They crawl and index your links/bookmarks a la Google, so they also detect broken links. AND you can search other user's data, too, etc.

[todayistheday]

Technically, what furl offers is not very challenging, so what makes a company like LookSmart buy it?

For the user base? I don't expect it to be that big at furl either.

Any insights?

josh

[Webvisitor]

This was a little bit of 'shock and awe' perpetrated by LookSmart on the SE community. No one expected it. It means that LookSmart is not dead and indeed intends to be around a little longer.

LookSmart's FindArticle fits nicely with Furl. Find an article and bookmark the entire text. When you refer to it later Looksmart will have a contextual ad staring at you. I would expect to see an expanded agreement with Google for ads until they can implement their own program.

The new algorithm discussed in alignment with Wisenut cannot be dismissed. LookSmart has the tools to turn the corner in relevancy. Grub is a product that has not been properly utilized. Zeal performs one of the best services on the net concerning placement of non-profit websites in the LookSmart directory.
I have talked to a couple of people who will use it for access to the 5 gig of storage. Between Furl and MyJeeves my bookmarking storage needs are more than met.
I applaud LookSmart for taking this step.

[halfacat]

LookSmart's FindArticle fits nicely with Furl. Find an article and bookmark the entire text. When you refer to it later Looksmart will have a contextual ad staring at you. I would expect to see an expanded agreement with Google for ads until they can implement their own program.

Looksmart has a Content program that lists via categories. Will this work with FURL? or is it more complex and they will need to adopt a keyworded(sic) approach?

[zeevveez]

Yesterday I subscribed to Furl http://www.furl.net/index.jsp which gives me 5 gigabytes available storage, "enough to store tens of thousands of web pages".

I tend to agree with Mike Giles, founder of Furl when he says:

"There's been so much focus on search on the internet, and very little emphasis on what you do with that data when you find it."

Qtsaver [http://qtsaver.blogspot.com/] answers exactly the same question but from another angle – how are you going to re-use what you've saved; for example, if you want to write an essay based on your saved files.

But most of all I'm interested in Furl because it shows me the way to store multiple Qtsaver results pages. When you research a huge subject you want to collect answers to different queries and a storage tool like Furl might help a lot to search within these results.

[VMG]

Any other search engines like Furl?

[zeevveez]

You can store your links on blinklist [http://www.blinklist.com/], or del.ic.ous, and there are tools to store web pages on your computer, but as far as I know Furl is the only free tool for storing web pages on the web.

[Webvisitor]

Now that Looksmart's Furl is featured as part of the N.Y Times TimesSelect we can see the commercial implications for social bookmarking tools.

Publishers employing such tools have a captured or 'walled in' set of data (sites) to target ads to. I would imagine if a NYT reader has an interest in antique auto's and he compiles (by saving) all articles and photos related to his hobby the paper will place relevant ads in the readers TimesFile homepage.
Being the largest online newspaper in the world we can imagine they will be looking at hundreds of individual saved pages with thousands of categories to serve ads to.
I read earlier this week that Viacom is to be embedding Furl on some of its sites at some point in the near future. It is already a tab option on some of Viacom's CBStv local affiliate site but the article I read claimed it will be a license similar to the NYT deal.

The answer to why Looksmart bought Furl is now apparent.

[zeevveez]

To VMG,

Meanwhile I found out that My Web Beta is doing exactly what Furl is doing.
I already posted about it on my Blog
http://qtsaver.blogspot.com/2005/09/yahoo-my-web-beta.html

[kidmercury]

Yesterday I subscribed to Furl http://www.furl.net/index.jsp which gives me 5 gigabytes available storage, "enough to store tens of thousands of web pages".

I tend to agree with Mike Giles, founder of Furl when he says:

"There's been so much focus on search on the internet, and very little emphasis on what you do with that data when you find it."


i think google is headed down this path with their my search history tool, which i think is more convenient for google users. the vast majority of searches i do i wont ever use again, and for those that i do use, i can just search my search history.

[VMG]

Which do you think is better, furl or deliciuos and why do you think so?

[zeevveez]

I don't use Delic.ious - I use BlinList for arranging bookmarks, but Furl is unique in saving web pages and that's good in case the links break. All three software are also good for publicity- in case you need to expose your ideas to more people.

[rcjordan]

I have a rule against using anything hosted, so furl is out. I do read delicious/popular (http://del.icio.us/popular/) looking for interesting articles or software. I view it as sort of a web-related Fark, never expecting any rare jewels but one or two daily are worth a click.