Discover and Share Your Favorite Internet Tools with Curated.by

Curated.by has quickly become a new addiction for me (as if I needed another). In just the short amount of time that I've been a member of the site, I have discovered many useful Internet and social media tools and apps. The idea behind Curated.by is to make it easier to find "the good stuff" on Twitter. The goal of the site is "to help where a Twitter list or hashtag search is just not good enough."

As a member and curator of the site, your job is to put website links together in what they call bundles; these topic specific bundles are then shared on the site and followed by other users who choose to subscribe. "Curated.by works a bit like labels for Gmail. [They] let you organize your tweets around a topic, an event or a company." Bundles can also be embedded as a customizable widget on websites that allow JavaScript or shared via URL, Twitter and Facebook. If you prefer, your bundle can also be private.

You can create bundles using their bookmarklet or Chrome extension. The extension places a "curate" button on below every tweet on the Twitter website. This allows you to easy add tweets to a specific bundle, while the bookmarklet allows you to add any website link (discovered while browsing) to a bundle.

The home page is where your news feed appears. Here you can see updates from the people you follow on the site. When you join Curated.by (via Twitter OAuth) it automatically follows all of your Twitter friends that are already on the site. Curated.by is great for finding new friends as well, since you can connect with others that share your topic and bundle interests via the search bar.

The Explore page is where you can see the latest bundles and curators. The topics page is pretty interesting because you can see what other people have curated. Topics are in a list according to popularity.

When you view a bundle, you can see the curator, stats, links featured in it and followers. The news feed of the bundle is much like Facebook in that you can comment and like each item. Some items show links, others show text and some even have thumbnails. There are many possibilities and great uses for a tool like Curated.by. Best of all, what you include in your bundle and how you organize it is all up to you.

You can also receive email alerts and control what you receive alerts about. You can choose receive a notification when someone starts following you and when someone subscribes to your bundle. There is also an option to receive an email each time someone updates a bundle that you're following; you can choose to receive emails right away or as a once per day daily update.

What are your thoughts on Curated.by. Is it something that you see yourself using in a regular basis?

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5 Chrome Extensions That Work Beautifully in RockMelt

If you're not familiar with RockMelt, it's a a web browser that focuses on social sharing, Facebook chat and RSS feeds. It's built on Chromium, so it has the speed of Google Chrome along with most of the design. While some of Chrome's extensions do not quite work properly on RockMelt, there are others that work beautifully. I know some people who decided not to use RockMelt because it's lack of compatibility with extensions, but with new updates happening every week RockMelt is quickly improving and worth using.

I actually prefer the way RockMelts handles extensions over Google Chrome's method. While Chrome puts extension icons beside the search bar and does not give you the ability to remove icons or move them around, RockMelt does allowing rearranging and removal of icons. Also, RockMelts places their icons in right sidebar, so your search bar and address bar do not have to suffer (get smaller and smaller) with each new addition of an extension.

By the way, the right sidebar is also where RSS feeds and your Facebook and Twitter timelines are placed (as you can see from the image to the right). So now that you're more familiar with RockMelt, here are 5 extensions that you're sure to enjoy.

FeedSquares

This is one of my favorite extensions in Chrome, so I'm glad it also works in RockMelt. Basically, FeedSquares makes Google reader more enjoyable and makes your feeds pretty to look at. RSS items are presented as squares on a wall and then you can click on one to open in the story in the center of the screen over your wall. (link)

Gmail Checker Plus

If you're someone that keeps a browser tab open with Gmail 24/7 (like me) then this extension will come in handy! Within the preview window you can mark messages as read, delete messages, mark messages as spam, archive items and more. Desktop notifications are also available. (link)

Diigo

I love being able to bookmark, highlight and add notes anywhere on the web with Diigo. This little extension really comes in handy when reading articles. You can highlight the things that really interest you and save them to your Diigo library. The web highlighter toolbar can be moved around anywhere on the page as well. (link)

TooManyTabs

"A must-have extension that manages your tabs, reduces your tab overflow, and saves your sanity." TooManyTabs allows you to "suspend" tabs in order to save memory and clear out your browser tabs. There are also other features like tab sorting and searching. It's nice to be able to put the tabs you're not using on hold until later. (link)

Clip to Evernote

As you probably already know, with Evernote you can save full pages and clip content and then save them to your Evernote notebook(s). It also allows you to enable a feature where you can search through your Evernote notebook(s) whenever you search Google; the results will show at the top of your Google results. (link)

FYI: If you're wondering how to manage your extensions (RockMelt does not make it readily available), you'll need to go to chrome://extensions/ in your browser. Also remember that you can drag and drop icons or right click to totally remove them from the sidebar!

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Leave Your Social Footprints All Over the Web with Marginize

I have been using the Marginize browser plugin for a couple weeks now on both Firefox and Google Chrome. It’s a non-obtrusive tool that I really enjoy using because it makes browsing the Web more fun and social. Marginize is a great way to see what others are saying (on Twitter, Facebook and Google Buzz) about a specific web page. As you’re surfing the Web, you can also share your own thoughts and opinions about any web page. Not only that but you can check-in to any web page and possibly become the “curator”. Being the curator means that you are the most active person on that site (for the moment).

Like many sites now, Marginize allows you to sign in with your existing Twitter, Facebook or Google Buzz account; no need for creating a new account. One you install the browser plugin (or add the bookmarklet to your bookmarks bar) you will see a tab displayed on the right side of your browser. There will also be a button at the top of your toolbar that allows you to show/hide the tab. The tab will also have a number displayed on it, which represents the number of people who have commented on that page via the plugin.

Clicking on the tab will open up a sidebar-like window (on top of the current web page). This is where you interact on Marginize. You can check-in to the current web page with the click of a button. When you check in, you’ll have the option to share your check-in on Twitter, Facebook or Google Buzz (depending on which network is selected when you click check-in). By the way, you’ll be able to see all of your check-ins and comments on your profile page.

You can only check in to a specific web page once every 4 hours. You will not be allowed to check in until time is up. Until then, a timer will show on the button letting you know how many hours, minutes and seconds you have left until you can check in again.

You can see who (from the Marginize community) has recently been to that page. You can view the “community” for that site, which will show all of the people who have been to that page and how many times. Users will be ranked by number of visits to the page and you’ll be able to see the current curator.

Then there is a box that lets you say something about the website, and you can choose which social network to share your comment on. If others have reacted/commented, you will be able to see those below the box. If not, you’ll be invited to be the first one to react. If there are reactions/comments already there you can like, RT and comment on them. You can also click on the user’s name or avatar to view their Marginize profile.

I like that with Marginize, you can take Twitter, Facebook and Google Buzz to every web page that you visit. Surprisingly, the tab never seems to get in the way and it doesn’t slow down any web pages either. In my opinion, Marginize is a definite win for those who want to be more social and love sharing what they’re doing all around the Web.

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Turn Twitter.com Into a Feature Rich App with MonkeyFly

If you’re someone who hasn’t found the “perfect” Twitter app or just likes to use the Twitter.com websites for tweeting, MonkeyFly may be for you. Don’t let the funny name fool you: MonkeyFly is small browser extension with big, useful features. You can currently use the extension on Firefox (addon, greasemonkey script), Google Chrome (extension, userscript) and Safari (extension). For this review, I’ll be using the Google Chrome extension.

Once you add the extension, you will notice an addition of six small icons (when you first go to Twitter.com). You will also see that there is an actually tab for home as well (see below). The “tweet” button is also not visible under the tweet box (until you click inside).

What are these icons for? Well the top row of three icons lets you refresh all columns (right now there is only the home column but you can add more). You can also add and remove new tabs with the plus and minus sign. When adding a new tab, you’ll be able to give it a custom name. It will then show next to the home tab, and you’ll also be able to rearrange the tabs (move them around).

The row of two icons on the below the three let you refresh just that column and add new columns next to it. Each new column will then have its own refresh icon and minus icon (which lets you close that specific column). So, you could end up having a three or four column view right on Twitter.com! These columns can also be moved around and rearranged as you like. The types of columns you can add are: mentions, direct messages, favorites, your tweets, retweets (by others, by you, your tweets retweeted), lists and saved keywords.

Finally, the arrow icon in between the sidebar and main column lets you hide the sidebar altogether. You can click on it again to reshow the sidebar. This gives you more space for your tweet tabs and columns.

There are also more options available when scrolling over a tweet with your mouse. Along with replying and tweeting you can also reply to all that are mentioned in the tweet, retweet with a comment and translate the tweet.

There are also more options with the tweet box. Instead of just being able to tweet, you can also add photos (via twitpic), shorten URLs and save tweets as drafts. There is also a progress bar along the top of the tweet box (along with the character counter) that shows you how much more you can say.

In my opinion, MonkeyFly is pretty impressive for an extension. It doesn’t slow down the site at all and it makes reading tweets much easier (with tab and column view). I may actually use the Twitter.com site more often now. How about you?

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