Furl Social Bookmarking: Save, Search, Archive, Share, Explore

Update: Furl shut down its services on April 17, 2009 and is now a part of Diigo.

Did you ever find a website with some great information, bookmark the URL in your browser and then return later and the site had been changed and the information was gone?
You should have Furled it.

Social bookmarking site, Furl, lets you File URLs – and not the just links to URLs - but actual archived copies of web pages that can then be read, shared and searched.  So if the actual website has changed or is down, your saved copy of the page is waiting for you on Furl.   Want to see the new version of the page?  Just hit refresh and it is delivered to you.

Furl provides an excellent opportunity for businesses and/or individuals to build an archive of industry information and establish themselves as subject matter experts within the Furl community and beyond.

Having been around since 2003, Furl has developed a feature-rich social bookmarking platform with some of the most interesting being:

• Archived pages can be assigned topics (tags), keywords, comments, ratings and portions can be clipped for summary purposes.

• Furl builds a full-text index of all saved pages creating the ability to search your personally saved information, as well as all publicly saved pages by all FURL members.

• Furl recommends similar public Furl links and topics based on your interests and also suggests Furlmates (Furl members) that have similar saving patterns.

• Get social with Furl by emailing saved links, joining or starting groups, subscribing to other Furl members’ saves and commenting on Furl members’ public archive pages.

• Syndicate your Furl archive with RSS or add a link list of your latest public Furl saves to your web page or blog with cut and paste javascript.

• Keep your stash private or share it with the world. Each saved item and topic can be marked public or private (the default is public) and you can decide whether or not to have your Furl archive crawled by search engines.

Ready to Furl?

Simply sign up and set up your Furl preferences. Although not required, make your Furl life easier by adding the Furl toolbar to your browser.   Furl also has an extensive FAQs section with numerous tips and help, Furl screencasts, import tools for importing favorites and bookmarks from browsers and del.icio.us, and a variety of export tools for creating back-up copies of your archives.