Making information consumption tools is hard.

[Repurposed from my Twitter thread].

Making information capture tools is easy. Making information consumption tools is hard. Because information is polymorphic. The same piece of information can be viewed and understood differently depending on context.

Building a good information consumption tool requires deep understanding of:

1. Whom it's for
2. Why they need it
3. When they use it

I think this is where a lot of general-purpose "Bookmarking" tools (my own included) miss the target. Too much focus on the capture. Not enough focus on the consumption. Because you to be an effective consumption tool, you need to niche down.

Examples of good bookmarking tools, because they serve a niche:

• Pocket - for reading
• Pinterest - for visual inspiration
• Google Travel - for travel planning

This is also the reason why the best bookmarking tools are usually the ones built into the medium. Because it already knows the consumption pattern of its users. (Twitter Blue, unfortunately, doesn't get this).

But then the problem, for the user, becomes one of fragmentation. You have bookmarks all over the place. Wouldn't it better if my bookmarks can surface in different platforms in different shapes?

These are thoughts of mine as I plan Markfolder's future. It's somewhat useful now as a very niche Twitter bookmarking tool. I could expand it to support other sources and social media. Bookmark anything. From anywhere.

But that'll just solve one side of the challenge. It needs to solve the consumption challenge too. It needs to surface the bookmarked information when, where and how I need it.

So a more interesting trajectory for it would be to build consumption tools on top of it.

Markfolder as a universal bookmarking platform.

With an ecosystem of tools on top of it, serving various contexts of consumption.