Comments on: It'd be great to have an app that remembered how you found cool stuff online

By: BeaverBeaver

BeaverBeaver — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 19:55:00 +0000

Google History. It’s not exactly what we are talking about, but I have on many occassion time traveled back to a previous city/job/mindset via Google History to find something “cool” I barely remembered. In the same way, if I search for solar flare, chances are I will find the site where I learned about solar flares that one time. It’s not a solution to this problem and not exact but if this kind of thing is appealing, use google history.

By: flarktobble

flarktobble — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 19:18:00 +0000

Not to sidetrack the discussion, but what strikes me about this question is not so much the mechanics of recording these paths, but the paths themselves. I would expect that for a lot of folks, it’s the same path nearly every time (e.g. Google->”Here”, or BoingBoing->”Here”), but for others (including a good many commenters, it seems) the paths would more resemble the example from the article. What personality attributes contribute to longer vs. shorter paths to “Here”? Or, similarly, how do your paths change over time? Or do you even retrace a path at all (maybe initially you go A->B->C->D->E the first time, but then G->E after that)?

By: Clive

Clive — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 15:27:00 +0000

Thank you! Fixed that in my original blog entry. Slapping forehead.

By: ignacio alcocer cordero

ignacio alcocer cordero — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 15:23:00 +0000

try this one… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bookmark_%28World_Wide_Web%29

By: Bret Bernhoft

Bret Bernhoft — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 14:39:00 +0000

Facebook has this information already, as long as you are logged in. I imagine that later iterations of Facebook services will include an opportunity to visualize your behavior. However, this can be done in your browser already, it would just take an analysis of your cookies. Meaning, if you found it necessary, you could visualize your Internet traffic patterns with existing 3rd party tech on your computer.

Check this out: https://secure.toolness.com/xpi/collusion.html.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 13:55:00 +0000

Anyone saying “that’s really easy” should demonstrate how easy it is by writing it instead of saying how easy it is.

By: Alberto Romero

Alberto Romero — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 12:35:00 +0000

Wow, someone pointed me to this one in a comment on my blog, I wrote about this 5 days ago. I called it “referral feature” and did a mockup:
http://denegro.com/2011/08/a-%E2%80%9Breferral-feature%E2%80%99-for-web-browsers/

I didn’t know the Firefox plugin mentioned above, I wish there was one for Chrome!

By: LeftyX

LeftyX — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 11:31:00 +0000

A webcam “a little larger than a walnut”? Like this?
http://cdn.mos.totalfilm.com/images/1/11-old-chestnut-630-75.jpg

By: lerevdr

lerevdr — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 09:01:00 +0000

Does anyone remember kottke’s article on Wikipedia Contrails?

http://kottke.org/06/06/wikipedia-contrails

Blessings,

Le Rev Dr

By: lerevdr

lerevdr — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 08:57:00 +0000

YAUWZ! can we have a “Rule 23″ but for xkcd?

Blessings,

Le Rev Dr

By: erin jones

erin jones — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 05:14:00 +0000

At this point in my relationship with the interwebs (designing interactive products since 1990), I rarely download and install new widget-y apps b/c I’m just, well, tired. So I have been using a combination of “Add to iPhoto library,” and self-generated notes when necessary, to track my history.

I use my browsing history as a sort of journal: It is certainly very important to me and it provides fodder for both my writing/art and for the purpose of self-analysis.

But I’m a bit embarrassed about how hack my solution is. Maybe I’ll do some research and adopt a better solution. Although, now that I’m thinking about it, I have about 10 years of history using this system that’s archived on HDs and it hasn’t failed me yet. I have about 14 years of Amazon wish list info that provides a record of my research over time. If it ain’t broke?

IDK.

By: vicx

vicx — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 05:01:00 +0000

Yeah this is the kind of thing I’d like. I love the idea of a bookmark triggering a lookback.

By: AC Missias

AC Missias — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 03:38:00 +0000

There used to be a Firefox plug-in called “How did I get here?” which would at least track the history of the tab you’re in, and/or what page you linked to the current page from (if in a new tab or whatever), which was great for blog acknowledgements, but of course it didn’t track the greater wandering history that you might be looking for. (and, sadly, it didn’t make the upgrade from Firefox 2.something.)

By: Cypher386

Cypher386 — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 03:32:00 +0000

Firefox addon “Voyage” is close to what you want. It creates a visual map of sites browsed, and the links you took between them. All the information that is needed is already stored in the browser history, so there are no new privacy issues. With Firefox “Sync” browser history can be shared across multiple computers. (This might be a security issue for you.) The addon didn’t work for a long time so I stopped using it.

By: teapot

teapot — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 02:49:00 +0000

Some points:
Brent: Nice. http://xkcd.com/239/
Zan: You can install multiple versions of Firefox to continue using addons you liked. Not so practical in this case, though.

Personally, I believe the best way is to remember a few keywords of whatever it is that you liked. Chances are that if you found it once you will again. Favicons also make the job of trawling history much easier, so webdesigners: be sure to include them in the sites you build!

By: waetherman

waetherman — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 02:24:00 +0000

In such a system, BoingBoing would be the Kevin Bacon of websites.

By: Bad Juju

Bad Juju — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 02:20:00 +0000

Microfilm = coolest thing in the library til Usenet showed up.

By: Tvtropes On Theweb

Tvtropes On Theweb — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 02:03:00 +0000

All that is needed is to grab some quantity of your history when you bookmark something. Store the data with your bookmark. Have a button on the bookmark to the effect of “Show how I got here” to display the history. An extension for moz you could do while standing on your head and whistling Dixie.

By: tmdpny

tmdpny — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 00:55:00 +0000

This is exactly what I use Evernote for. I read or see something cool online, I web clip it, and the associated evernote record records the URL automatically. I don’t leave home without it! :)

By: Doug Nelson

Doug Nelson — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 00:14:00 +0000

I like your “time viewed” filter.

If the option to store the data remotely was added (and I’ll admit to being uneasy about that), we could have the ability to follow the path of how other people got to a given page. Or even statistically averaged paths (most popular, 2nd most popular, etc.).

Oh, and I’d like an optional tree view with thumbnails of pages and direction lines. Both just for reviewing my own history and to see how others travelled.

Lots of potentially interesting sites to be found if this was available. And lots of money to be made by someone if enough people can stomach the online storage version. I’d like to see other’s paths, though I doubt I’d contribute my own.

This would be a boon to many long-tail sites that count on views for revenue.

By: Jamie Sue

Jamie Sue — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 23:17:00 +0000

That’s not bad. Except I would add the ability to limited recorded sites to sites visited for more than X seconds and expand the filter to common search terms.

In the options I would set time to… say… 10 seconds. If I’ve looked at a page for more than ten seconds it becomes part of the URL record. Then I could use the search term “paper lantern”. It would load a slideshow of pages featuring that term. Knowing how I am that would lead to the pages of paper lantern crafts that I liked the best, because those that I didn’t like wouldn’t have gotten 10 seconds of my attention. Then I could browse through the images and select the page that reminds me of what I want.

Now, give me the ability to highlight individual or large blocks of images and delete them with ease and you’ve got an app I would download.

By: franko

franko — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 23:12:00 +0000

pandora’s box. you can’t have it both ways, i’m afraid.

By: ahecht

ahecht — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 23:00:00 +0000

Back in 2004 or so I used a Firefox extension called "How'd I Get Here" which did exactly what you ask for. Unfortunately Firefox 3 broke the extension, and it was never updated. "Tab History Redux" is what I currently use. It makes new tabs inherit their history from the parent tab.

By: MrJM

MrJM — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 22:47:00 +0000

That doesn’t look very peasy to me.

By: Bush's Brain

Bush's Brain — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 22:40:00 +0000

Vannevar.

By: Doug Nelson

Doug Nelson — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 22:30:00 +0000

Just have each URL you visit recorded (locally and encrypted, thank you), and a
utility app with a timeline slider that will play back a slideshow of your pages
from x to y. You could add filters (show only pages from boingboing.net, etc.).
Easy peasy.

By: James Kimbell

James Kimbell — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 22:26:00 +0000

I think that if I knew that my path to a piece of information was being recorded externally, then I would feel free to not even try to remember it internally. And I think that’s good. I could focus on whatever cool thing I’m looking at, without being distracted by thoughts of how I’m going to find it again later, or recall who led me to it and thank them, etc.

By: Lexica

Lexica — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 21:48:00 +0000

I want a “Now where did I read that?” button for my keyboard. Even if I didn’t remember how I got there, at least I’d know where there was.

By: Brent Kirkham

Brent Kirkham — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 21:44:00 +0000

I remember something about bloggers blogging from balloons and wearing goggles, but no idea who said what, or why, or about whom. Is that the kind of thing we mean?

Seriously though, I need an app to bookmark all the cool things I see (not just on BB) to show folks.

Browsers don’t really cut it for bookmarks do they?

and Yes, I know there’s an obligatory xkcd for this, as there is for most things in life.

By: CharredBarn

CharredBarn — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 21:40:00 +0000

Pathway was a little program that allowed you to do something like this, but only the wikipedia domain. As you jumped from link to link within wikipedia, it would created a kind of map of where you’d been. For Mac, and it’s several years old now. Plus the download link is dead. http://osx.iusethis.com/app/pathway

Update: still available at http://pathway.screenager.be/download, and appears to launch and run on Snow Leopard. Cool idea, and would be nice to see something like this for the web at large.