Marking up the internet

A while back, I wrote about a tool called "ClipMarks" that I was using to share snippets of web pages with other people. I really like it.

However, I have now found a tool I like better for this, and I have converted to i-Lighter. I'd looked at it before and didn't like it, but they've made significant improvements since then and now I think it is awesome. What's so cool about i-Lighter? Read on...

Easy as a yellow pen (but much better)

i-Lighter is a free browser add-in (Firefox and IE) that gives you the virtual equivalent of a yellow pen that you can use to highlight all or part of a web page. You see the highlights right there on the page.

First, you download the browser add-in and create an account at the i-Lighter site (this stores your highlights centrally in a sort of catalog). Then you click the i-Lighter toolbar button to turn on your yellow pen, and start highlighting.

Share the love

Once you've marked the best parts of the page, then the fun really starts. i-Lighter has a bunch of options for what you can do with your highlights:

• Add a note to the highlights to blend in your own commentary
• Email the page (with highlighting) or just the highlights to someone else (you can create an i-Lighter address book to streamline the process)
• Send the link to Twitter - this automatically creates a tinyurl for you!
• Blog it (Wordpress or Blogger only)
• Tag it on del.ici.ous

I use this quite a bit these days to share news article on interesting topics with my coworkers, and find that i-Lighter makes it very easy. If you want to see i-Lighter in action, check out the online tour.

By the way - this is Windows only for now, but the i-Lighter CEO's blog says a Mac version is likely in the future.

Comments

[Marcy Hoffman]

Thanks for the kind words! We have been working hard to improve i-Lighter and have some exciting enhancements in the works.
And, the MAC version is being tested and will be released within the month.
Marcy Hoffman
i-Lighter

[trabbi]

Did you try

http://www.diigo.com/index

already?
Trabbi

[Lights]

Noice! I'm spotlighting this article in our news and reviews.

[Slim Amamou]

also consider trying my lightweight http://markkit.net (it should work on mac)