the blog

Q: Does it takes a village to build a Xerpi home page?

A: No — but it sure is fun!

Xerpi just unveiled a new feature — Xerpi Community! You've always loved your favorites, but now you can share those bookmark views with your friends. (And of course, now your friends can also share pages of their favorites with you!)

But why stop there? While you're sharing your view, now you can also let your friends add their favorites too!

Here's how it works. Just click on the "pencil" icon at the top of a view's page (in the tab with its name). Not only can you re-name a view — now you can also designate its special sharing status. You can share it with the public — everyone on the web — or just make it available to "family and friends." (And there's still a third choice for the classic "for your eyes only" view — private!)

Selecting "Friends" will pull up a clickable list of all of your Xerpi friends. Then just select which ones you want to share your view. (There's also a second list where you can select which friends can add and edit the links!) Below that the window displays the web address for your new view — so you can cut-and-paste it into an email and start telling your friends...

I'm excited about this. Just think of all the communities that can now collaborate on a Xerpi view.

• Members of your family?
  
• Those people who surf the web at work!
• Your old friends from that class reunion
• All the people in your neighborhood...

I got a sneak preview at the new Xerpi help file, and they came up with some more good examples.

• A study group at school sharing research and project links
• Rock climbing buddies, sharing links about gear, climbing spots, and places to camp
• A law firm, keeping current on legislation and sharing articles.

It's so flexible, it's hard to see where the possibilities end. I imagine that someday, someone will make a special view for their sick friend, with all their friends contributing funny links to help cheer them up. Maybe a mother will make a Xerpi view for her young daughter's birthday, with everyone in the family pitching in. But there's an even more important question. Who will you build a favorites page with?

That's one of the great things about Xerpi. When the internet was young, writer Howard Rheingold used to attach this sentence to the bottom of every email he sent.

"What it is — is up to us."

Ultimately you can share your view with whoever you want to collaborate with. (Or whoever wants to collaborate with you!) Together you'll combine your best-est links into a grand collection of glorious web-based synchronicity.

Or something like that.

And besides — it's a lot of fun!