The Innovator’s Dilemma, First Hand

del.icio.us is a bookmark manager for the blog generation, unlike my old warhorse, BlinkPro, which is essentially a bookmark manager for the mainframe generation.

Comments from the Old Blog

Well, let’s compare: BlinkPro is useful, attractive, and meets the needs of real researchers. del.icio.us is a collection of links with no commentary or order other than date.

So, if one admires the blog approach of “throw randomness out there, organize by date, hope it makes sense”, then del will be of interest. I would rather read blogdex or its ilk.

I recall that Blinkpro tried to make some “social” steps, such as allowing users to share bookmarks, but sometimes what you need is a real app, a tool, not a way to throw as much as possible on a wall and hope to find it later.

Show me someone who really uses a blog as a reference tool, and I’ll show you a person who has not met a wiki.

Just a blinkpro fan,

Michael
wexler at yahoo dot com

Posted by: Michael Wexler on December 23, 2003 3:17 PM

Thanks for the comment Michael, I guess I was feeling sorry for myself … or feeling sorry for the crappy state of my code at least!

Posted by: Ari Paparo on December 23, 2003 3:46 PM

Your analogy only reinforces the fact that BlinkPro rocks the party. Mainframes are like original bubble gum — trendy fads like blogs will come and go, but that old IBM 3090 will keep on crankin’ data well past the expiration of deli.cio.us.

boy, I miss surfing the blink library!

Posted by: anittah on December 23, 2003 4:01 PM

Old Blinkers, ha ha 🙂

Posted by: OG on December 24, 2003 12:57 PM

very informal….

Posted by: suzi on May 22, 2004 7:38 AM