serial consign

Over the last month I've been beta testing a number of social bookmarking and database projects. With new web applications you can always tell if a project is on to something if use of the service creeps into your daily workflow without your noticing. One new service I'm really enjoying is ffffound!, an image bookmarking site that exists somewhere between the worlds of del.ici.ous and flickr. The project is described as:

...web service that not only allows the users to post and share their favorite images found on the web, but also dynamically recommends each user's tastes and interests for an inspirational image-bookmarking experience.

fffound! succeeds for the same reason that del.icio.us does, the bookmarking process is transparent, and the site interface for browsing archived images is simple and versatile.

[image: screen capture of the ffffound! UI with "related images" thumbnails on the right]

If you take a look at my ffffound! profile you can view the image archive as a list (with related thumbnails at the side) or via a thumbnail gallery. If you select a specific image, you get a list of all the users that have bookmarked that image and the system cross references their collections to make suggestions as to other material that you may enjoy. I really love the minimal interface and the lack of tags as they make browsing ffffound! an exercise in simplicity. The images thus far archived by the ffffound! community are quite promising, so It goes without say that I'm quite excited to watch this project develop.

If you are interested in this project, I have two invites available and would be happy to send them the way of whoever contacts me first. Mike Migurski of Stamen wrote a fairly detailed review of ffffound! a few weeks ago that is also worth taking a look at if you want another perspective on the project.

[image: screen capture of an image being bookmarked on bldgblog]