Almost all of the time we spend online is spent swimming in a sea of information.  Without help, it can be difficult to keep track of it all and to remember the pieces of information you need to be able to refer back to in the future.  It can also be hard to separate the useful sources of information from the crap.

Shelfster is an app that aims to solve both problems.  First, it allows you to clip and organize information that’s important to you, whether it’s from the Internet or from your computer’s hard drive.  Second, you can follow other Shelfster members to see what they are saving and sharing. You can also follow tags to see what other members post about specific topics.

If you think Shelfster sounds a lot like Evernote or Springpad crossed with a social bookmarking site like Delicious, you are absolutely right.  The question is, how does it compare with these services?

Using Shelfster requires you to download and install a desktop app, much like Evernote’s optional desktop app.  You can use the desktop app to save selected text on a web page (much like Evernote’s “clip” feature) or to crop a particular portion of the page to save (much like Evernote’s “screen capture” feature). One thing that I do like about Shelfster’s clipper is that you can select items and then drag them and drop them to clip.

Like Evernote and Springpad, information in Shelfster is organized via tagging. Like Springpad, Shelfster has a social component in that you can follow other members to see what they are posting (unless the item has been designated private).  Unlike Springpad,  Shelfster rates you on the basis of reputation, so it’s easier to find community members that consistently deliver high-quality content.

Shelfster is a decent app, but Evernote and Springpad are both already light-years ahead of it in terms of useful features. Springpad offers a variety of apps to help you organize and use the information you collect. Evernote offers awesome features like the ability to recognize text in images and make that text searchable, plus third-party integration with other useful apps like Shoeboxed.

I can see an advantage in being able to store your own personal library of information and get information recommended to you by trusted sources all on the same website, but it’s a very tiny advantage.  With the availability of bookmarklets and browser extensions, it’s so easy to visit Delicious, StumbleUpon, Digg or whatever your preferred social bookmarking site is and then use an existing tool like Evernote to save and categorize the information you find there that I’m not sure why you would want to start all over again on Shelfster.

Shelfster is easy to use and well-designed, but I think to seriously compete with Evernote and/or Springpad they need to offer some kind of feature that these other apps don’t already provide and that doesn’t require people to create a new social graph of users they trust on yet another website.

What do you think of Shelfster? Try it out for yourself and let us know in the comments: it’s currently in private beta, but this link is good for the next 10 readers who want to sign up.

Our Rating of Shelfster

Tags: Productivity

Categories:web