Technology Consultant Harness the power of the Internet

Ditch your web browser’s “favorites” for web-based favorites

Have you ever been at home and wished you could access something that you had bookmarked or listed as a favorite on your work computer? If you have, read on because this article is for you.

There are many web-based bookmarking programs. My personal favorite is Google Bookmarks. It lets you access your bookmarks from any computer connected to the Internet.

Google Bookmarks

You'll need a Gmail account to start using Bookmarks. Get a gmail account now if you don't have one. You can access your bookmarks by installing a toolbar on your own computers or you can access your bookmarks by going to Google's website. When you access it directly on Google.com, you can search  your bookmarks, sort them however you wish and many other things. Here are some of the ways I use Google Bookmarks:

1. To keep track of links I use all the time. I have computers at home and at work so using google bookmarks allows me to access my favorite links from anywhere and ensures that my computers are always in sync.
2. To track websites that may be important to me at some point. I've created dozens of labels to organize my bookmarks in a way that makes sense to me. For example, I have a "Web Design Examples" that I use to bookmark sites that I think look good from a design perspective. I also keep track of "competitors" in a folder as well as "potential customers" and "partners".
3. I use the web to add notes to my bookmarks. I don't always remember what I was thinking when I bookmarked a site. By adding notes, I'm able to keep track of what inspired me to bookmark a particular site.
4. I'm able to search and organize my bookmarks on any web-enabled computer. When I'm away from home but I can access the Internet at any number of Internet kiosk or Internet Cafes, I can still get to my links.
5. I use it to get inspiration. When I have a few minutes that I want to kill, I'll spend time looking through my old bookmarks. It's been great to see how my knowledge about a particular industry has grown with time. It's also great to see companies that were once obscure grow in popularity. For example, several years ago I was researching how to send Text Messages or SMS messages for a business idea that I had. I came across twitter almost in its infancy. I bookmarked it. Then a year or two ago I was going through my bookmarks and came across it again and decided to sign up. Now it has become a very important tool for internet marketers and companies.

Alternatives

This article wouldn't be complete if I didn't mention a few alternatives. One of the largest is http://delicious.com (it is also known as del.icio.us).  I'll probably do a post dedicated just to this very important social bookmarking tool. But in short, it's a very effective bookmarking site with a slightly different mission. Del.icio.us is meant to be shared with other people. In fact you can surf other people's bookmarks. Plus, search engines frequently use Del.icio.us in helping determine where to place a site in search results. The theory is that if dozens or even thousands of people have bookmarked it that it must be more important than sites that aren't bookmarked. Here is an expanded list of Social Bookmarking Sites.

The two above are the two that I use most frequently. However, there are literally dozens more. Here is a list of other online bookmarking services.