Editing Furl

{{for|the sailing term|Furl (sailing)}}
'''Furl''' (from '''F'''ile '''U'''niform '''R'''esource '''L'''ocators) was a free [[social bookmarking]] website that  allowed members to store searchable copies of [[webpage]]s and share them with others. Every member received 5 [[gigabyte]]s of storage space. The site was founded by Mike Giles in 2003 and purchased by [[LookSmart]] in September 2004.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3411601 |title=Looksmart Acquires Furl.net |author=Chris Sherman |accessdate=2008-03-17 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080206125310/http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3411601 |archivedate=2008-02-06 }}</ref> [[Diigo]] (a web [[annotation]], [[social bookmarking]] & research tool website) bought it from LookSmart in exchange for equity.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://techcrunch.com/2009/03/09/diigo-buys-web-page-clipping-service-furl-away-from-looksmart/|title=Diigo Buys Web Page Clipping Service Furl Away From LookSmart|website=TechCrunch|date=9 March 2009 |language=en-US|access-date=2019-01-15}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/diigo_acquires_furl.php |title=LookSmart Hands over Social Bookmarking Service Furl to Diigo - ReadWriteWeb |accessdate=2009-03-09 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20090312032353/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/diigo_acquires_furl.php |archivedate=2009-03-12 }}</ref>

==Features==
{{refimprovesection|date=January 2019}}
Furl enabled members to bookmark, annotate, and share web pages. ''Topics'' were used to categorize saved sites, similar to the [[Tag (metadata)|tagging]] feature of other social websites. Additionally, a user could write comments, save clippings, assign each bookmark a rating and [[Keyword (Internet search)|keywords]] (which are given greater weight while searching), and have an option of private or public storage for each topic or item archived. 

Considered one of its main features,<ref>{{Cite web
|url=https://techcrunch.com/?p=30
|title=Profile:Furl
|author=[[Michael Arrington]], [[TechCrunch]]
|date=19 June 2005
|accessdate=2007-07-07 |format= }}</ref>
Furl also privately archived a complete copy of the HTML of each page that a user bookmarks, making it accessible even if the original content was modified or removed, an antidote for [[link rot]]. This also allowed full text searches to be made within the archive. However, as highlighted under limitations below, images that were embedded using links were not archived with user's copy of the HTML page, so images sometimes disappeared over time. To avoid claims of [[Copyright infringement|copyright violations]], this archived copy was visible only to the member who bookmarked the page. Other users were directed to the publisher's site, where the content could be viewed depending on membership requirements and privacy settings.

Users could see lists of other users who have ''furled'' a URL, and read their comments (if made public) to find users who share interests, supporting [[folksonomy]].  A dynamic recommendation list was automatically generated for each user based on the sites already saved by him or her and other users with similar interests.  Lists of the most popular items for today, this week, and this month (and by topic) were also available.  It was possible to subscribe to a user's archive (or to a set of topics in a user's archive) to get daily email notifications whenever new items were filed.  

Furl allowed bookmarks to be imported from (and exported to) [[Internet Explorer]], [[Mozilla]]/[[Firefox]], and [[Delicious (website)|Delicious]]; and also supported exporting of the entire saved archives to [[ZIP (file format)|ZIP]] formats, and export metadata to [[XML]] format. There were other import/export functions, including various citation formats (MLA, APA, Chicago, CBE, BibTeX, and RIS/EndNote).<ref>{{Cite web
 |url         = http://furl.net/doc/features#Interoperability
 |title       = LookSmart's Furl - features
 |accessdate  = 2008-03-17
 |url-status     = dead
 |archiveurl  = https://web.archive.org/web/20080311040217/http://www.furl.net/doc/features#Interoperability
 |archivedate = 2008-03-11
}}</ref>
Toolbars and [[bookmarklet]]s are available for Internet Explorer and Firefox to quicken the bookmarking process.

==Limitations==
{{unrefsection|date=January 2019}}
Images which were embedded links were not archived with the HTML page. For example, when an HTML page was archived via Furl, the location of the JPG from the HTML content was saved, thus pulling up that image when the user's personal copy was loaded; however, if that image no longer exists on the original server, it was lost and will not display with the user's archived copy. So, a Furled site with many pictures could end up being just text.

The search result displayed items from the entire Furl archive, or only from a user's own archive, but the sequence of these results was automatically ordered.  There was no option to display results by date order, by popularity order, or in any other particular sequence.  It was not obvious how the results are ordered.

The popularity of Furl exposed users to performance problems which began in the latter half of 2006 and persisted into 2007.

== Updates ==

New features were released in early 2007, including an updated user-interface. On January 30, 2008, Furl unveiled an updated user interface.<ref>{{Cite web
 |url         = http://blogs.looksmart.com/furl/2008/01/furl-has-a-new.html
 |title       = Furl.net Blog
 |accessdate  = 2008-01-30
 |url-status     = dead
 |archiveurl  = https://web.archive.org/web/20080203172249/http://blogs.looksmart.com/furl/2008/01/furl-has-a-new.html
 |archivedate = February 3, 2008
}}  </ref>
Furl shut down its services on April 17, 2009.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.furl.net/ |title=FURL |year=2009 |accessdate=2009-04-16 |quote=Furl will be shut down on April 17. Furl is being absorbed by Diigo and will no longer be available. |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20090316051502/http://www.furl.net/ |archivedate=2009-03-16 }}</ref>

==See also==
*[[Diigo]]
*[[List of social software]]
*[[Link rot]]
*[[Web archiving]]

== References ==
{{reflist}}


[[Category:Social bookmarking websites]]
[[Category:Defunct websites]]
[[Category:Internet properties established in 2003]]
[[Category:Internet properties disestablished in 2009]]