I typically introduce myself in a professional context by saying something like "I love the web" or "I believe in the web". And I really do. The internet is as close as humanity has ever gotten to a "marketplace of ideas" with super low barriers to entry. Looking around it's easy to see that there are bad things that come with that; we knew there were in the late '90s and early aughts, too, but the badness seemed so far away then. The badness is here to stay on the modern web, and it's something we're wrestling with now.
But I built booooookmarks, honestly, to try and forget that. Every morning without fail I pull up kottke.org and read whatever is new. I've been doing this for decades now, and Jason's site has lasted through upheaval and change, the dotcom bust and boom, the Yahoo sale--all the touchstones of the internet golden age. It's still here, unearthing things I find fascinating or inspiring (along with some topical things about how weird and scary it feels to be an earthling right now.)
So many of those links are to stories about people just doing cool stuff. Maybe they're designing something neat, of thinking through a hard and esoteric problem. Reading those stories reminds me that being a human can be rad and wonderful. I want to keep as many of those stories as I can, so I can go back and read them again or see if they've changed or progressed over time. I want to be part of a feedback loop of inspiration, creativity, and humanity.
I've given up thinking this is a dumb goal. In short, my hope is that by using this thing I've made you can build your very own little folders full of interest and joy. I've built something intentially simple with a verty narrow focus. I didn't set out to build a productivity system, or a general purpose notebook. And those things are great! But what I realized I enjoyed about organizing links was that it occupies the same kind of meditative space as gardening.
As a designer I very frequently will roam about the internet in search of inspiration for solving a specific problem. As I'm sifting through the things I find, I'm also forming an opinion about how I might like to solve that problem. It's one of the most pleasant aspects of my work. I can feel myself learning new stuff! I want that for other people. I built this first for myself, to support my own specific approach to "internet gardening". I genuinely hope you'll enjoy it, too.
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Nick Jones is founder and creator of booooookmarks--the simple bookmarking app. Try it now.