Gimme Bar is one of those tools that the more you play with it, the more useful you realize it is. It kind of reminds me of Amplify since it lets you grab parts of any Web page. However, Amplify is more social since it lets you share that content across the Web on numerous social networks. Gimme Bar is more about collecting parts of a Web page to tell a story or for private use, yet it has many useful features that make it very powerful and memorable.
All you need to get started is the bookmarklet or Chrome extension. Once you get either, you’ll be given a link to your library, which is where you can access your collections, profile, applications, and settings. You can also discover new public content from the people you’re fallowing and find other Gimme Bar users to connect with.
The library is a general overview of all of your collections. “Collections help you organize and tell stories with your content.” In your library you can search for specific collections, view each collection individually, and even sort your items by content type (images, videos, text, full pages).
Adding a new collection is as easy as clicking on “New Collection” and then entering a name and description. You can also create new collections when you add new content (see below). Collections can be edited and deleted as well as made public or private. Each collection has its own short URL and Twitter share button so that you can easy share them with the world.
From your profile you can see items that you’ve added to your collections. Public items can be added to your “Public Firehose” or a public collection that you create. Likewise, private items can be added to your “Private Stash” or a private collection that you create.
Adding items to your library. Once you click on the bookmarklet or browser button, you’ll see a bar at the bottom of the Web page you’re on. Hovering over the “Gimme the full page” button will change to “Public” and “Private” buttons. These are the buttons to use if you want to grab the full page that you’re on.
Once you click on the appropriate button, you’ll get a pop window where you can add a title, description, and tags for your item. You can also choose to add the item to a collection you already have or create a new one (as opposed to the “Public Firehose” or “Private Stash”). That collection can be either public or private as well.
If you just want to add a video, image, link, or specific text from the Web page then Gimme Bar works a little differently. You would have to highlight and/or drag the item that you want down to the “Public Firehose” or “Private Stash” area. Once you do that, you’ll get the same popup as above in order to add more details to your item. All items will be grouped together and use the same details.
From the settings you’ll be able to update your user settings (name, email, password) and connect Gimme Bar to your Dropbox account so that you can backup your library.
I’m sure there are other important details I’m leaving out, but you get the gist of it. Gimme Bar is definitely more than just a social bookmarking tool; it’s an organization tool for your favorite online content and an online storybook that can be shared with friends.
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