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Refind — Worth your attention
Refind helps you read more of what’s worth your attention.
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Chris Messina
Top Hunter
Hunter
I've known @dominikg since his days at Wuala (which he sold to LaCie). I've also been in active communication with him over the launch of Refind for several months and his tenacity, responsiveness, and care about the details reminds me of so many early Web 2.0 app launches. As he and I discussed the need for Refind and its best use cases, I came to really value his intended direction: to help separate the day-to-day wheat from the chaff, and provide an enduring archive or the best and most useful links *over time*. In an age where we're all washed in a digital deluge, it's nice to finally have a life raft to climb into.
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@chrismessina Thanks a lot, Chris. I really want to get this right and your help over the last months has been enormous!
@dominikg @chrismessina I remember loving Wuala back when it was only in German (pre-Dropbox era)! It's exciting to see you on to other great things! I can't wait to use it.
Been playing around with this for a few days now :) - quite like it.
They have an integration with Pocket too
You can read the story behind building Refind here but I'll let @dominikg tell us more here :)
Question: How does the implementation of multiple feeds on Nuzzel 2.0 effect your plans with Refind? Do you see it as an alternative/something that can work alongside Nuzzel?
Are you concerned people will see this as "another place on the web for articles" when there are many sources out there atm?
@bentossell Thanks, Ben! Nuzzel is about news. Of course you can save news on Refind too, but it’s more about classics – links with long shelf lives, links you want to find again later. I try to show the difference here: https://refind.com/home#difference
Welcome, Product Hunters! For three days only, skip the line and join before everyone else. We’re very excited to be on Product Hunt! It’s super early but you’re the audience we had in mind when building this so we’d love to know what you think!
HOW IT WORKS
Save great links that will come in handy in the future. Discover what others save. And then find everything again when you really need it – for example when you later search for this topic on Google, Refind highlights links you or your friends saved (optional).
POCKET?
We love and use Pocket. Refind is complementary and you can connect Pocket to Refind. Pocket is a reading list, Refind is an archive. Pocket is to-do, Refind is fire and forget. Here’s how we see and use the two in combination: https://medium.com/@refind/refin...
DELICIOUS? OTHERS?
Delicious pioneered social bookmarking in 2003. We’re taking up on where they left off. And here’s how we believe Refind fits into today’s landscape: https://refind.com/home#difference
WHY?
Here’s why we’re building this: https://medium.com/@refind/this-...
We really hope you like it! Again, it’s super early but we’re going to work on this for a very long time so we’d love to know what you think! I’ll be around here and you can also reach me on Twitter (https://twitter.com/dominikg) or at dominik@refind.com.
Thanks a lot!
Dominik (Founder)
@dominikg I don't see Delicious in your landscape, can you say more about how you're "taking up on where they left off"? Also: can we import our old bookmarks from Delicious or other services?
@eliservescent Thanks for your interest in this. Delicious pioneered social bookmarking in 2003 but innovation seems to have stopped a long time ago. We currently don't see a place to save and re-find the best links you discover on the web, and we want to change that. We believe it is a very basic and useful metaphor, and much different from reading lists like Pocket, etc. And yes, you can import your browser bookmarks but also from services like Delicious, see https://refind.com/settings. Does that answer your question?
@eliservescent You've probably seen these, but just in case... Here we describe why we're building it: https://medium.com/@refind/this-.... And here's how we see it in relation to Read Later: https://medium.com/@refind/refin....
@dominikg We might be interested in letting Refinders import their finds and following's finds into our dashboard. I don't see an API but, is that coming soon?
will your revenue plan involve sharing or analyzing links (including my own) and then selling ads against it, or data in bulk?
@dominikg hah! hope there is something to make it stick around before people start building their collections around it! maybe a Kickstarter to ensure life for at least 2 years?
@passingnotes Hehe :) Don't worry... I'm intending to work on this for a very long time and got that covered. I really want to get the params right and provide value. All else will follow...
'Discover the Web' sounds familiar... I should have trademarked that ;) https://www.producthunt.com/tech...
@webtech Btw: I've changed the H1 (`Discover the web`) a number of times but this one stuck because it's short and generic... Hm.
@dominikg We can share the tagline! And dotmos is a bit different - we search 20+ sources, including social media and a few other apis, all blended to create what we call a 'Discovery Engine.' Do you have plans for an API? Your curation concept would make for a great source on dotmos... Let's chat: rod@dotmos.com
@webtech Yes, we have plans for an API! :) I'll ping you once we get there...
@rickats I say "all links". Joking aside, I see the two as being quite different and I'd like to integrate with Product Hunt! One example: Product Hunt has an awesome community with huge engagement – if a link to a product gets saved to Refind that has been discussed on Product Hunt, I'd like to link to that discussion from Refind... (and other ideas).
.@refindcom has been - yet for the 6th year - a well-crafted refuge for interesting content, quality customisations and invaluable help muffling the noise.
Great product, great team, still unfairly underrated.
https://refind.com/lyondhur?invi...
I tried this out at launch, and I stupidly decided I didn't want to use it because I had too much tied up in Pocket and Pinboard, so I got rid of my account. Can I please get an invite back in? I want to move to Refind and use it instead!
@htnawsaj Pinboard is great, but I don't know it very well. Main difference I see is discovery, which is quite an important aspect of Refind (i.e., your feed) and is emphasized more than on Pinboard?
Dudes, I really like the service, I'm giving it a try. Three questions: 1) What is the easiest way to export my Delicious bookmarks? 2) Is there a way to make saved links private? 3) Is there a specific reason why the product looks exactly like Medium?
@helloalexivanov Thanks, Alex! 1) Export your Delicious links here: https://delicious.com/settings/m... 2) No, all links are public – we want to keep it simple! 3) Medium is beautiful!
@dominikg @helloalexivanov Hey, 3) I totally share your passion about Medium; it's just that at some point it becomes confusing: I somehow feel that Refind and Medium are the same, which is not the case. As for 2) private links, that's a bummer, because I can't just import my bookmarks from Delicious. Part of them are private and I want them to be this way... Please think about it — I'd be happy to export and start using it more if private links issue is resolved.
@helloalexivanov Import is a two-step process: 1) It first reads your file and shows the links for review. 2) You can then save/dismiss links individually (or save/dismiss all). Also, it does respect the private flag from Delicious – links that were private on Delicious do not get suggested. Does that help?
@dominikg @helloalexivanov +1 for option to make links private in the future. This is vital to completely replacing bookmarks IMO
@colemercer @helloalexivanov I definitely see the need/use case but I'm afraid deciding private/public would make it more complex – I want to keep it dead simple. Use Refind for all public links, bookmarks or Evernote for private ones?
Great user onboarding, dummy proof. Just a question, maybe it's there but I can't see it :) any chance to get the excerpt or description of the link before saving it?
@elenabrz Thanks Elena! Excerpt: Not yet. We're thinking about it but not sure if/how/where to show it. It's a design trade-off... Would you like to see the excerpt under every link, or only on click (e.g., `expand`)?
@elenabrz That could work. I have a Trello card for this (excerpt/snippet). I won't implement anything immediately but I'm thinking about it.
Good idea, you need to get how to keep users at the beginning. Instead of proposing following Twitter users I would prefer to engage by showing my saves (even if I am alone). Good job!
@rrrraulsc Gotcha! Refind has two main use cases: 1. archive/search (single player), 2. discovery (multi player). It's a question of emphasis, of course, but can easily use only use case 1 – simply unfollow everyone :)
A simple and very effective product! Love the way it works silently and almost invisible in a very useful way!
Congrats @dominikg
@dominikg i like how you bothered to explain & illustrate how refind fits into our workflow! they make me realise (much more quickly) how useful refind could be. in particular, i now have a more refin(e)d experience with Pocket, because i can keep it exclusive to those articles that i want to read soon.
@leejien I assume you mean the flow chart in https://medium.com/@refind/refin...? Glad you like it! Many have told me that's too nerdy/geeky, but I like it because it depicts my actual flow. I thought a long time about how Refind fits into the landscape, whether there's too much overlap with existing tools, etc... and I came to the conclusion that I need it – I hope others too :)
Been using it for some months now and it's indeed a great addition to my stack of reading, finding and archiving great links. I especially like having all the curated links when I open a new Chrome tab :D
@abarrera that is what makes it valuable for me to, the new tab extension is where the magic lies IMHO.
@abarrera I'm actually (positively) surprised by how many users have set and kept Refind as their New Tab page in Chrome. That makes me very happy because it's sort of a proxy for measuring the quality of the feed / links.
@dominikg This looks very interesting, I love the Pocket & Refind combination workflow you shared -- I find that I'm saving a lot to my Pocket account and it's become a replacement for Delicious but it's not the best for that, and that breaks down the Read Later workflow. I'd like to try it!
This reminds me of the long-gone startup Lookmark, which I really thought was an amazing bookmark tool: https://www.crunchbase.com/organ...
As a writer, what I would like to see is an emphasis on more than just the techies out there. This kind of fits this bill but I think its limitations make it kind of tough to jump into on a daily basis. This, on the other hand, is really good at collecting ideas and tying them all together—the social layer Pocket has always been missing, in a way. I also like that Buffer is built in. Cheers!
@shortformernie Didn't know Lookmark, thanks for the info. Please let me know if Refind becomes useful for daily usage!
Great tool I write a ton of content for my main biz Collaborative Office Environments and we have two startups coming on board in 2106. This will make my life simpler Have already downloaded the chrome extension to work with This along with Contentools is going to make my life one hell of a lot easier as I trade links all day long
Love this, was actually half-heartedly working on something similar a while back. The main differences were:
1) requiring a description for each link (enables thoughtful response, dis-incentivizes posting 100 links/day); and
2) automatically compiling the links posted each day/week by people a user follows into an email newsletter for the user.
basically Benedict Evans' newsletter, but for everyone: http://ben-evans.com/#newsletter
@cjl49 Thanks for sharing this, Calvin!
1) I was thinking about that too but I want to make it low friction when saving links and let the algorithm manage the ranking/de-noising.
2) There is a weekly digest which shows the top 10 best links from the people and tags you follow (opt-out). There's even a daily digest (opt-in) which surprisingly many people have turned on :) You can turn on/off in the settings: https://refind.com/settings
I really hope you like it. You've given this space a lot of thought, please let me know if you miss anything.
@cjl49 Btw didn't know Ben Evan's newsletter, thanks for the tip! :)
I've been using Refind for a week or so and I have read so many good articles. The quality of the posts Refind finds is amazing.
Sometimes the amount of good links results in lower productivity :/ I'm working on this.
Kudos on the makers, this is a very useful tool.
Pros:Lots of good links, very interesting information I couldn't find by myself. It's a great source of news.
Cons:I only wanted to have an option to see the chrome links I had in my default new tab page. Not a big deal though.