Rethink the Way We Send Link
If you’re using Firefox, just right click on any links nearby and you should see ‘Send Link…’ in the context menu. Clicking this item will open default email client composition window with this URL, type your friend’s address and the link will be ready to be sent. Now you know what I’m gonna talk about.
It’s one of features I’ve never used since my first browsing experience with good old Netscape 3.0 Gold. It’s also one of my most-hatred features because I always misclick it and end up with waiting Thunderbird to start.
Many people think the same. There is a bug filed in Bugzilla since 2004 but seems that it’s not gonna happen in near future. The best way to get rid of these unused menu items is probably via Menu Editor extension. Anyway, this blog is not about feature rant.
While I’ve never used ‘Send Link…’ context menu, there are numerous times I send links to someone else through other channels. The most common way is copy it (by ‘Copy Link Location’) and paste into IM chat window. It’s very simple process but not the best efficient way. Endless copy & paste wastes my time, energy and effort.
Can we fix this?
People (seem not to) don’t use email anymore. And the incarnation of 2.0 social things brings us a lot of new ways to share and communicate. Beside of IM, I also post some links to Delicious (using bookmarklet), Tumblr, Twitter and Facebook Shared Items. Is there any creative way to share a link from your browser?
An extension to paste link directly to active IM window (or tab) might be useful but how about the other social networking sites? Is there one solution to fit them all?
Writing this blog reminds me the vision of Thunderbird from Mozilla Messaging:
Thunderbird can become a powerful yet enjoyable tool to help individuals manage their online interactions, whether that’s email, instant messaging, social networking messages, or other types of message.
Isn’t this fit for this situation?
- mk's blog
or next time while we reading an article on some website,
Firefox will ask us (as text in its information bar, or whatever),
"[from your send link history] It seems like your friends (pruet, sugree, lewcpe, jittat) may like to know about what you're reading now as well. Say "Go" to send them the link."
or something like,
"Your friends (sugree, pittaya, bact) are currently reading or had read this article, and like to discuss about it. Say "Discuss" to start the conversation."
@bact' your idea reminds me the infamous MS Office Clip :P
hmm... as a clip, a tiny thin iron wire - connected with nothing, there's no room for a brain!
for this next gen 'web browser' (if the term still applied), it has collective brain of the internet users ... wake up :P
