Since the first popular web browser was released in 1993, bookmarks have been a fact of the internet that keep us organised and cause us frustration at the same time. Originally when the web was a tangled mess, and the world was still using AltaVista, bookmarks were necessary for you to find your GeoCities site or your favourite web comic. These days we have RSS readers to find the latest updates, GeoCities has closed its doors, and it’s usually faster to Google something than to type the address in the bar. (I do this all the time, including Googling for Google!)

The main problem with bookmarks that has existed since they were born, is the issue of keeping them organised. These days I use multiple computers, with a number of different browsers, and my bookmarks get out of control. Why would anyone want to use bookmarks anymore? In his post titled “Do We Still Need Bookmarks?“, Jono answers this question with these insightful use cases:

The Todo List. “I want to look at this, but not right now.” Someone gave me a link to a cool video about robots, but I don’t want to watch it right now, because I’m in the middle of something. Or, there’s a web form I need to fill out, but I don’t have the information I need yet. I bookmark the page because there’s an action I want to take later.

Sharing. “Oh man, this is funny!” This time, I found the cool robot video, and I want to show it to someone. I found a hilarious picture, or a news article that proves I was right in that argument we had a week ago. Either way, the value is in the sharing. I bookmark it so that later on I can give the link to others.

Frequently Used. “I want to get back here fast.” The page where I view my bank account status, the central documentation page for the project I’m working on, or a hub from which I often start surfing. I bookmark it because I expect to return often and I want to get there fast.

The Research Collection. “This fits right in to something I’m working on.” I’m a history teacher, preparing a lesson plan, and I’m collecting resources about World War 1. Or, I’m a political blogger, and I’m collecting links about all the ways my Least Favorite Politician has screwed things up. I bookmark pages because I want to add them to my growing collection of data on a certain topic.

This is exactly how I use my bookmarks, as well as everyone I know. We’re all just stuck copying our bookmarks from one computer to another and importing into the various browsers we use. What else can we do? Call Captain Planet and the Planeteers? No, they’re too busy fighting Dr. Blight and Looten Plunder. What we need is Xmarks!

Formally known as Foxmarks, this service lives in the cloud and performs automatic synchronization of bookmarks between all of your computers and browsers. What evolved as a Firefox Add-on, Xmarks now supports the top 4 leading browsers today with a range of plugins and native applications. As it’s in the cloud you have the benefit of your bookmarks being backed up and available wherever you have internet access.

“It sounds ok, but I’m not convinced,” a random reader might say. Well that’s just the start, look at this impressive list of features:

• A simple web interface to access and organise your bookmarks.
• The ability to define different profiles for home, work, etc., to filter which bookmarks are available where.
• Secure sync of stored passwords between when you use Xmarks with Firefox.
• Mobile bookmarks are supported with a special mobile interface directly in your browser.
• The website has a cool blue colour scheme (I like blue).

Now to be honest, the mobile interface isn’t very strong. It’s not a genuine replacement for native bookmarks, but apparently there’s an iPhone application in the works.

Xmarks is my number 1 favourite browser plugin ever. The first thing I do when I use a new computer or browser is download the appropriate plugin, and pull down my bookmarks and passwords. The process usually takes less than a minute, and I have an exact copy of my toolbar links and all of my saved login information. Any changes I make will be synchronized immediately, which makes it perfect for the “Todo List” style of links. For the most important things I’ll place them on the toolbar so that I see them right away when I get home. Best of all, it works over HTTP so you can use Xmarks behind a proxy.

A year ago I would have agreed that bookmarks were dying off. With the power of the cloud, Xmarks brings back bookmarks, big time!