Spurl.net streams
August 9th, 2004For those not familiar with Spurl, it’s a social software bookmarking tool similar to the likes of Furl and Del.icio.us (although I’m not sure if Furl can be considered social software). Today, Spurl came out with Spurl.net streams:
“Spurl.net streams are a new and improved way for publishing spurls and working together in groups, gathering links on a given topic. A user can create a Spurl.net stream on any topic and allow others to contribute to the stream. When creating a stream, a user connects one (or more) of his existing categories to the stream. All spurls to that category there after are added to the stream.
There are three types of streams: An “Open” stream allows any user to join as a contributor without anybody’s permission. A “Limited” stream requires an approval from the stream owner before a user can become a contributor. A “Closed” stream does not accept any additional contributors.
When a user joins as a contributor, he or she can connect (one or more) existing categories to the stream, or have Spurl.net create a new category that is automatically connected to it.
Within a stream, anybody can view the spurls, sort them by date, title or popularity and search them, using all the same advanced possibilities as available when searching one’s own spurls. This can make a well-crafted stream a highly valuable resource about a given topic, allowing its contributors to build an advanced search engine with custom, hand picked content.
And a Spurl.net streams’ contents can of course be syndicated via RSS, Atom or a Javascript feed.”
While this was only started today (and the author admits there is need for improvement), I love the concept. Not only are users adding to their own online bookmarks, they are adding to the community collective. This fits into the Del.icio.us model of bookmarking not only for yourself but for others perusal as well that are interested in particular topics. Librarians should be all over this.