Bookmarking apps are omnipresent these days. Almost all of them are feature rich and are either free or come with affordable freemium plans. Since bookmarks take up a negligible amount of harddisk space, you can virtually store an unlimited number of them. However, when you are trying to bundle relevant bookmarks together in context, things might not work so great as you’d expect.
What we need is an app that can help us clip and share content on the fly. Bundlr is a tool for online curation that does it all – clipping, aggregation and sharing web content. The app strives to help Internet users, specially information professionals, select relevant multimedia content and broadcast it to their network. Is this the silver bullet that we are all looking for?
Overview
The uses of an app like Bundlr are manifold. Besides gathering different social media and digital content like photos, videos and tweets to present in a single place online, it can be used privately for research, brainstorming, writing articles, and more.
Overview
Links, text selections and images can be clipped from any page. Right now, Bundlr supports snipping content from YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr, Slideshare, Twitter, Wikipedia, Scridb and AudioBoo and hence you don’t have to worry about their embed codes. Support for other services are on the way and it’s good that the developers take requests from their users too.
Ease of Use
Despite promoting a single click sign up with an existing Facebook or Twitter account, I was forced to submit my email address to create an account. Having an account is step one and you will need to install either their Chrome extension or the bookmarklet to clip content and to create bundles.
Creating a Bundle from the Plugin
To get started, I installed the Google Chrome extension. When I first accessed the plugin, it stated that I hadn’t created a bundle yet. Thankfully, you don’t have to jump to the web app to create a bundle. Click on the plus sign to create one right from the plugin itself.
Creating Bundles
Clipping Options
You can select content from a website to add to the bundle, whether it’s text, image, video or a document, by using Bundlr’s toolbar button. I was amazed at how fast it was to clip the content, upload it and move ahead!
Adding a Note
Once the clip is uploaded, you have options to undo it or add a note explaining what it is all about. If you plan to add more such clips, use the Add More Clips button to proceed further.
Clipping YouTube Video
I chose to clip a YouTube video this time and was surprised to see that the app promptly informed me of protected videos when it can’t clip one. When I tried to clip an unprotected video, the process was just as simple, the same as clipping a link, and no further work or details were needed.
With Bundlr you can clip an entire page or link and at the same time clip parts of the text too. Simply select the textual content that’s of use to you and use the plugin to clip only that portion of the content along with the relevant link and other info.
Accessing Bundles
All The Clippings in a Bundle
When you are done compiling a bundle, head over to the web app to edit and manage individual bundles. Click on a bundle name to see all the clips you have saved so far. You can add notes or delete some clips to make a bundle more crisp. However, absence of the option to reorder clips is a major let down.
Sharing Bundles
Embed Code For Sharing
When you start clipping content, there are options to share them across all popular social networks through every step of the way. Alternatively you can share an entire bundle too. Best of all, Bundlr offers an embed code to post the bundle in your blog or website. This way, you can quickly curate and share content in the way that works best for your audience.
Finding Collaborators
Sharing isn’t limited to the bundles created by you. A major USP of Bundlr is the ability to search, access and share bundles created by fellow users. Another star feature is the ability to find Bundlr users of repute and request for them to collaborate with you on a project. Pretty cool!
Final Thoughts
With Bundlr you can create bundles of any kind of content: articles, photos, videos, tweets, links, and more. Cover real time breaking news from multiple sources or quickly wrap up an event with a collection of online feedback. The possibilities are limitless.
Just last week I wrote about the much hyped Delicious Stacks, which is based on a similar idea. However, when it comes to execution, Bundlr has got it right. With Delicious Stacks I was able to put a bunch of links together, but the app doesn’t come anywhere near the level of curation that Bundlr offers.
The only downside to using Bundlr is that all bundles you (and others) create are available in public. I’m not sure if this is a deliberate decision or a feature that might show up in a future update. Let’s hope it’s the latter!
Share Your Thoughts!
How do you create a bundle of bookmarks these days? Do you think an app like Bundlr with a single purpose can replace full fledged bookmarking apps, or is it a nice companion you’d use alongside other bookmarking tools?