Bookmarking, probably used by just about everyone on the web these days, is a concept that’s showing its age. With the massive number of sites we traverse, we eventually compile a massive collection of bookmarks, which then need to be organized via folders or other methods. Then of course there is the cross browser issue, backing them up, etc.

historious is a bookmarking replacement solution for the modern web “explorer”. Google showed us the power and utility of search and historious has now applied it to bookmarking. Read on to see how you can ditch your pile of bookmarks with historious.

Overview

historious‘ concept is quite simple really; instead of bookmarking sites you want to read later, “historify!” them and go back to them later via your personal content search engine. We generally only remember a few key words about sites we’ve bookmarked, which works out well with historious. Pop in the few key words you remember and your relevant “bookmarks” (historified sites) are your “search results”.

historious

In addition to getting rid of your bookmark clutter, historious makes it easier to share your historified sites or even allow other people to browse your personal historious.

Using historious

Install the historious bookmarklet or Chrome extension and you’re ready to go. When you come across a site you’d generally bookmark, simply use the bookmarklet or Chrome extension to historify! it.

iPhone 4 Video Historify

In a split second, historious will crawl the page and store a Google Search-like listing in your account for easy access to later on.

Searching

When you decide you want to go back and view a particular historified site, just enter a few key words related to the site you remember and you’ll be given related results just as you would when using Google — excluding all the extra crap you don’t want.

historious Search

Though I’ve only been using historious for about a week, I already love using it. I “bookmark” (read: historify) about ten times as many sites as before because I’m no longer worried about cluttering up my bookmarks menu or having to go through later and organize them.

Listing Options – Cached, Publish, Delete and Edit

You’ll notice in the screenshot above that each listing has options to view a cached version of the site, publish the listing to your public historious account for others to see or delete the listing entirely.

Additionally, you can hover over a listing’s title to see its [edit] link and customize the title as you see fit. This is a nice touch, and something you’d expect if you wanted similar capabilities as regular bookmarking.

Edit Title

You can also choose to enable auto-tweeting of your historified sites as an easy way to share interesting sites with your followers. I really like this idea but I haven’t tried it yet so I’m not sure if you can selectively tweet sites you historify, which is what I’d prefer.

Importing Bookmarks and Exporting historious Sites

I don’t see an option, yet, to You can import your current bookmarks! but I do hope that’s a feature in development. To import a list of URLs or bookmarks file, you can visit http://YOURUSERNAME.historio.us/add/. Should you decide historious isn’t your cup of tea, you can visit http://YOURUSERNAME.historio.us/export/ to see a full list of your historified URLs.

Edit: Thanks for the import clarification Stavros!

Import

Final Thoughts

historious is a great, and fresh, solution to an aging workflow (bookmarks). I am certainly enjoying it so far and don’t plan on moving back to regular bookmarking. It’s especially great that I can access all my historified sites anywhere I have an internet connection, on any computer with a browser — something not so easily done with bookmarks.

Though I think historious is great, I also think there are improvements to be made, but I’m certain the developer(s) are already hard at work on them. A quick peek at the historious blog and you’ll see they’re making regular improvements. I can, however, certainly see bookmarking power users not so easily swayed.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on historious and your preference between it and bookmarking (or another solution).