Create a Personal Homepage With Zeadoo

I’ve seen many of my friends collecting clippings from newspapers and magazines for future reference. None of those clippings have ever seen the light of the day again. Of late, am seeing a similar pattern emerge with bookmarks. Folks are just bookmarking away links and pages that they hardly ever find the time to revisit. Too many free bookmarking services encourage this behavior.

If these bookmarking apps make users leave the plugin and visit the web app for something other than viewing the bookmarks, there’s a great chance those URLs suffering from damnation will get their salvation. Personally, I think Zeadoo is one such bookmarking app with a twist.

Overview

Zeadoo is your personal start page for searching, bookmarking and sharing websites with friends. The app is targeted at anyone who wants a simple, customizable page that they can access with one click from anywhere in the world. Zeadoo is absolutely free and anyone can start using the app after a quick and simple sign up process.

Getting Started

Just a quick visit to your email inbox to confirm the registration and off you go to create a personal homepage. You can begin your Zeadoo experience by searching for stuff from the dashboard. That’s right, you can perform searches at your favorite websites without having to leave the web app. Type in the keywords and select the website where you want the search to be executed. From Google, Wikipedia to Twitter and eBay, almost all popular and happening online destinations are on the list.

Once you click the name of the website to search, the results will open in a new window. It’s not very revolutionary, but saves a bit of time as you don’t have to type the website address every time. A lot of browser plugins offer similar functionality, but with Zeadoo you don’t have to install a plugin to get going.

Importing Bookmarks

If you plan to take advantage of storing your bookmarks in the cloud, install the Zeadoo plugin for Firefox. There is a toolbar for Internet Explorer users but surprisingly there isn’t even a bookmarklet for Chrome and Safari. Bookmarks stored in the browser locally can be imported to your account. To do that, export the bookmarks from your browser to the desktop.

Head over to the Import Bookmarks section to import/upload the file. As soon as the upload is complete, you will find all your bookmarks under the Bookmarks tab of the app. From the Edit Bookmarks tab, you can delete or edit the imported bookmarks. A brilliant drag and drop feature allows you to move around the entire folders or individual bookmarks for easy organization.

Saving Bookmarks

Using the Zeadoo Firefox plugin is like using any other bookmarking plugin, but it does come with a couple of interesting features. First up is the option to move the bookmark straight to personal homepage. The bookmarked URL and its title automatically populated however, if you wish, you can edit them too. A lot of other bookmarking apps don’t allow the users to do this. Options to assign the bookmark to an existing block and the option to create a new block altogether are available as well.

By default, all bookmarks are kept private, but use the Share check box to facilitate sharing with your peers. Type in the email address (or addresses) and a quick comment to pass the link for your contacts to see. All the shared links can be accessed at the Shared tab of the web app.

Finding Friends

It’s almost criminal for a modern day app to not have a social layer. Zeadoo has a social layer too. You can connect with existing users by searching for names. When the list is displayed, pick the ones you want to connect with and send a request. If they accept your request you can share bookmarks with each other.

Alternatively, you can invite friends from your contact list at popular services like Gmail, Yahoo, Plaxo, AOL, Outlook etc. Not comfortable to import the entire contacts database? Manually type a few address and send an invite in your own words.

Customization

Zeadoo offers two important customization options. The first one is the option to open a bookmark in a new tab or in the same window itself. A lot of apps by default open links in new tabs, but it’s always nice to have choices.

Second one is something that might attract the attention of many — themes and background images. Why use the same old color schemes and plain background? Zeadoo allows you to choose the colors and theme that suits your taste and there’s a design for everyone’s taste.

Use Zeadoo’s tools to customize your page to suit your taste. Personalize your page with a unique background design from their graphic artists and rearrange your page whenever you want. Can you see the difference? My dashboard is more fun to use now than ever!

Final Thoughts

Zeadoo isn’t a ground breaking idea but it’s a really useful idea implemented right. I have seen some web apps and plugins that offer similar functionality, but Zeadoo nails the user experience right. It’s intuitive, clutter free and is very light weight. For those who can’t make up their minds over which bookmarking app to try and those looking for a better alternative, I would strongly recommend Zeadoo.

Share Your Thoughts!

Impressed with the features of Zeadoo? Are you using a similar or better app?