Whether we like it or not, most of us spend a considerable portion of our time online and we discover loads of really cool things that we can often forget about. Of course, we can use the standard bookmark feature in our browsers but when you find too many cool things, things begin looking cluttered and makes it hard to distinguish between them and the rest.
This is where Zootool comes to the rescue. As well as offering a universal place to access your bookmarks, they can be easily organized and discussed with other users. Read on for a look at Zootool.
Overview
Zootool is an elegant and useful web app that allows anyone to easily save and organize their own bookmarks in a “Zoo”, allowing them to be shared and discovered by others. Bookmarks can be easily organized based on the type of document they are and select bookmarks can also be added to “packs”, making it even easier to find the best ones. With a really sleek and well-designed interface, the app is extremely easy to use and the actual processes of bookmarking, etc. can be picked up very quickly.
Overview
Interface
One of Zootool’s best assets is the really nice interface it sports. The dark color scheme with bright vector illustrations works really well at conveying the theme that the app follows and also provides a really great experience to the user. At times, especially in the actual Zoo section, it takes many of its concepts from that of desktop applications, making it really easy to organize bookmarks with drag and drop simplicity. Overall, the designers have done really well at making every single section of the app look great.
Interface
Creating an Account
Getting started with Zootool and account creation doesn’t take that long and once you’ve chosen a username and password, you’ll be sent an activation email. When this is complete, the account is created and you’ll then be able to take full advantage of the app.
Registration
You will then be shown a quick tour of the app that will show you how to use the main functionality; from adding the bookmarklet to your browser to actually organizing your bookmarks afterwards. After this, the homepage is shown from which you can immediately begin to control your Zoo.
Adding Bookmarks
One of Zootool’s main selling points is its complete ease of use. This is especially reflected in the process of actually adding bookmarks to the Zoo. As well as offering an easy way to add them whilst inside the app, they also offer a bookmarklet to do this even quicker.
The Lasso Tool
Once on a web page, the bookmarklet can be launched and an overlay will appear, giving the option to bookmark certain items on that page such as images or links to other pages. The whole page can also be bookmarked and the app can often extract the title and a description of the page (though these can be changed) and users are then free to add tags and choose a pack (if any) for the bookmark to be automatically be stored in.
Adding Bookmarks
As well as this, it’s also possible to email the page to someone else, quickly giving the option to add a custom message—Zootool takes care of the rest.
There’s also an unofficial Google Chrome extension that can replace the use of the bookmarklet.
Organizing Bookmarks
Once bookmarks have been added to your Zoo, they can also be further organized based on the type of document they are. As well as having support for full web pages, files such as images, videos and documents can also be filtered through the easy-to-use system so that you only find what you are looking for. They offer a standard search feature as well, allowing each bookmark to be found based on a criteria of the title or even the additional information associated with the bookmark such as tags that were added to it.
Managing Bookmarks
Packs can also be used as a method of grouping specific bookmarks for even easier reference when required.
Packs Feature
Discovery
As well as being extremely suited to the storage of bookmarks, it can also be used as a way to find great new interesting content that other users have shared with Zootool. With its tagging feature, finding similar content that matches a set search criteria is really simple and makes the experience even better. All content discovered using Zootool can also be easily added to users’ own Zoos for even easier saving or can be shared with others through the most popular social networking or content apps.
Users
Finally, another feature worth mentioning is the user system that Zootool has created. To make it even simpler to find useful content, Zootool employs a system similar to that of Tumblr and Twitter whereby users can follow others users whose content they find interesting, making it simple to find content that they are most likely going to be interested in. Each user has a profile containing their most recent bookmarks, as well as the people they are following and some brief personal information, making the app really social.
Profiles
Final Thoughts
In terms of the overall appeal of Zootool, I can easily identify why the app stands out as one of the best at doing this job. Its sleek and beautiful interface coupled with its really nice feature set make it the perfect companion to anyone that regularly surfs the web for pleasure, simply looking to save and find other pages. It’s one of the best uncluttered ways to discover plenty of fresh new content, also supporting discussion with other users.