Bundlr blog

Top 10 countries using Bundlr

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 13:18:20 +0100

One question we get a lot is where does the Bundlr community comes from? We’re glad to say they’re from all around the world. But these are the top 10 countries using Bundlr:

United States
Portugal
United Kingdom
Brazil
Russia
France
India
Germany
Argentina
Mexico

Your country is not up there? Help us spread the word by inviting your friends and colleagues to Bundlr.

We’re glad to see our own country, Portugal, well placed :)

Bundlr human-curated search

Tue, 18 Sep 2012 18:38:00 +0100

The community has clipped hundreds of thousands of interesting content and media from all over the web. We finally decided to do it justice by launching a new search engine for Bundlr.
We now index all kinds of information we grab from the sources, and also show you clips that match your search. Not only will you get a lot more results, they will be more relevant, thanks to the extra data we’re using.
So, give a try to the new Bundlr human-curated search.

New alphabetic list of bundles

Tue, 11 Sep 2012 01:13:14 +0100

If you happen to have a lot of bundles, you know that your account page can quickly become confusing. So we decided to organize it a bit. Now, if you have more than 6 bundles, your account page will have two sections: first, your 6 latest bundles; second an alphabetic list of all your bundles (see picture below).

This way, your most updated bundles stay highlighted, but it’s easier to find a particular bundle.

Bonus tip:

To group bundles together, give them the same prefix like “Topic - Subtopic”. With the new alphabetic list, they will appear next to each other.

Dealing with inappropriate content on Bundlr

Mon, 03 Sep 2012 15:22:15 +0100

In the last months we’ve noticed an increase of inappropriate content on Bundlr. These are tipically filled with misleading links or explicit content, and should be dealt with appropriatly.

To address this annoying issue, we’re giving you the ability to report suspicious bundles and users. Reported bundles and users are checked out by the Bundlr Staff, who will apply the proper measures.

To report content use the flag icon on both the bundle and account pages.

With your help Bundlr will stay clean and safe :)

Opera extension for Bundlr

Thu, 19 Jul 2012 17:25:07 +0100

Thanks to Gonçalo Valério, we now have a Bundlr Opera extension too. It works exactly as the Chrome and Firefox extensions and the bookmarklet, you just don’t need to have the bookmarks toolbar visible.

If your using Opera, go grab it.

Bundle embeds in the wild

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 13:38:27 +0100

Need inspiration on new ways to use Bundlr? Are you curious about how a bundle embed looks like? Here are five good examples:

JCMB uses Bundlr to show off their companies with press clippings.

The Sociological Imagination team creates blog posts of resources lists for their readers.

Groundviews raises awareness, adding their own perspective to the news they find online.

Brian Fitzpatrick shares with the Game Knight Reviews fans the cool stuff of the week, with a bundle embedded at the end of his round-up post.

My Indie Site shares the latest music on their genre, at the bottom of their Tumblog.

We’ve put together a little video to show you how to clip...

Mon, 09 Jul 2012 15:46:45 +0100

We’ve put together a little video to show you how to clip a tweet with Bundlr. It’s really simple.

Click the Bundlr button in the browser (extension or bookmarklet) while viewing a twitter stream.
A new “clip tweet” button will appear within each tweet.
Clip the tweet you want to collect.

It’s a great way to collect and save opinions about a topic.

5 ideas for embedding a bundle on your website or blog

Fri, 29 Jun 2012 11:05:26 +0100

Did you know that you could embed a bundle into any webpage? Here are five good ideas for doing it:

A good-looking press page

Show off your company’s media coverage by embedding a bundle into your Press section. It will update automatically every time you find and clip a new article.

End an article with a references list

Clipping inspiring content for a blog post? Share the sources with your readers by embedding it at the bottom of the article.

Real-time event coverage

Create a bundle about your event, embed it on the event website and clip the best tweets, photos and feedback from the attendees as they’re published.

Share a top 5 list

Show a “Top 5 places to have a cappuccino” bundle on your blog sidebar. Or a top list of anything else…

Keep a donation wishlist

Want to accept donations on your blog? Why not make a list of books or gadgets you want to receive as a present from your audience? Let yourself be surprised.

Twitter supports Bundlr as media

Tue, 26 Jun 2012 16:21:14 +0100

Twitter is adding support for more types of media on their platform, and bundles are one of them. You will start seeing bundle previews below tweets linking to a bundle. The preview includes the bundle title, description and cover image.

There are two types of curation: sprints vs marathons

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 16:55:02 +0100

Looking at Bundlr’s community, we noticed there are two distinct types of bundles. We call them sprints or marathons, and they’re very distinct ways to curate a topic. Neither is better than the other, it depends on what you’re trying to achieve. Here’s some information to help you choose wisely.

Sprints

These usually take a couple of hours to make, and can quickly have dozens or even hundreds of clips. They are used when you’re working on something time-sensitive. Common examples:

Covering conferences
Gathering resources for a blog post
Materials for a school assignment
Live news coverage

This kind of curation tends to get attention more quickly, since it’s about something interesting at the moment. You can watch the number of views increasing in real-time. But it won’t be of much use following it because there won’t be many updates. And so the attention eventually dies.

Marathons

Marathons start small, without buzz, like when you’re creating a new blog. Unlike sprints, they keep getting updates. Common examples:

Topics work-related
Someone’s hobby
Inspiration (like beautiful photography)
Community resources
Online clipping (a press page for a product or service)

This kind of curation slowly attracts followers. The audience steadily increases. Look at the The Meaning of Life bundle, updated frequently by Renato, for over a year now. It’s one of our most followed bundles, without being promoted. This is the best strategy if you’re trying to build a following and become an influencer in a particular topic.

Archive tweets into bundles

Thu, 14 Jun 2012 17:28:09 +0100

One of the worst things about Twitter is the inability to find old tweets. The best way to backup tweets is using a tool like Bundlr to save conversations, a conference discussion or a product feedback on Twitter.

You could already clip tweets using Bundlr, but in the latest release we simplified the workflow. Here’s how you can clip tweets into a bundle:

You’ll need an account on Bundlr and the browser button installed
On the Twitter website, click on Bundlr’s browser button…

…and notice the red Clip tweet link at the bottom of each tweet.
Pick the bundle to where you want to clip the tweets…

..or create a new one.
Finally, click on the Clip tweet link of the tweet you want to save…

…and the tweet is automatically saved to your bundle. If you go to the bundle page you’ll see your freshly clipped tweet:

To clip more tweets, just press Keep clipping on the widget and select other tweets. The bundle you picked last time will be selected by default.

9 tips for a popular bundle

Tue, 12 Jun 2012 17:13:37 +0100

Short and simple title

A good bundle title is short enough to fit the bundle frame (3 or 4 words tops) and to the point. Good examples: Creative Photography, Valentine’s Day Essentials and Surfing in Europe. There is only one way to catch someone’s attention with a less obvious title: a great bundle cover (more on that later).
Take advantage of descriptions

Since your title should be short, use the description to convince someone to start following your bundle. And don’t forget Google cares a lot about what you write on the description. Here’s a description we love from the Made in Portugal bundle:

The best that Portugal has to offer to the world. The inventions, the art, the technology, the food. A portrait of an old country that is still alive.
High quality bundle covers

A good title is important but there’s nothing like an awesome bundle cover to stand out. Specially an high quality image that looks good whatever the size of the bundle frame. Ludovic knows this and picks good photos for his covers:
Gather followers from inside and outside Bundlr

If the topic is interesting, your followers will probably start following your new bundles too. However, the most popular authors start sharing their bundles early on Twitter and Facebook, and even embed them on their blogs, to build a following.
Frequent updates

Though you can create a pretty good bundle in a couple of hours, the most popular ones are constantly updated, some even daily like Ray Wong’s Awesome Stuff. Too busy? Try adding collaborators to help you.
Mix visuals with quality content

Great photos and videos work great to impress a new visitor to your bundle, but if you want to keep your bundle interesting and retain an audience, you have to mix different types of media. Look for insightful articles, a good Speaker Deck presentation on your topic or a must-read book from Amazon.
Engage with the community

Don’t be a silo. Ask your followers on Twitter if they want to collaborate on your new bundle. If you’re working on a bundle about design, go to design forums and ask for great content for you to clip. You will end up with a better bundle and a bigger audience.
Team up with an influencer

Following up on the last tip, a bulletproof way to create a popular bundle is teaming up with someone who already has an audience on that topic. Nobody said it was easy being popular :)
Clip from different sources

We know there are websites we all love, but if a bundle is only going to have BBC articles we might as well do a search on their website and skip the bundle. While it can make sense in some cases, you’ll do better by following the example of the LikeSciFi bundle and use as many different relevant sources as you can.

Add a clip from the bundle page

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 22:57:38 +0100

Another new feature from the last release is the ability to clip something right from the bundle page. You might have noticed it… it’s this little form on the top right corner of your bundles:

Why do we added, you ask? Well, primarily for an embarrassing reason. As awesome as we want our browser button to be, it still doesn’t work on all browsers and platforms. And then there’s those really old websites with crazy insides that our cute clip widget can’t get pass.

So, if you have one of those problems, you can now copy the link of the page you want to clip and use the from above in one of your bundles.

After implementing it, we also found out that it works as a quick way to add a clip. Like in those cases where your already know the link by heart and it would be silly to open a new tab, go to the link and then use the Bundlr browser button to clip it.

Have fun speed clipping on Bundlr.

Export your bundles into bookmarks

Mon, 04 Jun 2012 17:48:46 +0100

This is a feature we wanted to build for some time now, and some users had already requested it: backing up content from Bundlr.

We chose to use the industry standard for this kind of content, which exports your clips as a bookmark list (with folders instead of bundles) that can be imported on Google Chrome, Safari and Firefox. Besides that, other services like Delicious, ZooTool and Pinboard also support it.

So, if you want to export your bundles, head over to your account settings and choose export.

It should take a couple of seconds to get everything together and start downloading, but not too much.

The new bundle visualizations

Sat, 02 Jun 2012 16:41:21 +0100

One of the first things you should notice on the new Bundlr is the redesigned bundles. There was a lot to improve from the last version, and we know how important is that the bundles you create look good. Since we were adding support for more platforms, we had the perfect excuse for a makeover.

Here’s how the two bundle visualizations ended up looking:

grid view

list view

Before, the list view was too similar to the grid and, therefore, not that useful. Now they have different purposes.

The grid view (the default) is better for a visual overview of a bundle, for someone who never seen it before, or simply for inspiration. The list view is better for articles, since you can more easily skim through headlines, and looking at your notes.

Finally, if you click a clip, you will go into the new preview more. It’s a slideshow of the bundle clips, where you can consume the media in its full glory, whether its a blog post, a TED talk or a SoundCloud mixtape.

Quick tip: you can also use the keyboard’s left and right arrow to switch clips.

Welcome to the new Bundlr

Wed, 30 May 2012 13:47:17 +0100

Exciting news everyone, we just launched a new Bundlr.

New homepage
Improved bundle design
We now support more than 200 platforms, including grabbing full articles from blogs and news websites

Now you can clip Amazon products, Soundcloud mixtapes, AppStore apps, Amazon books, TED talks, Kiva loans, and much more.

Take a look: http://bundlr.com

We also launched some smaller features like:

Export/backup your bundles
Add a clip directly from the bundle page
Share an individual clip from its preview page

By the way, it’s a new version, so if you see anything odd or run into any kind of trouble, let us know by replying to this email. We may have missed something.

"Be part of the content ecosystem, not just a re-packager of it. Often, people think of themselves as..."

Tue, 01 May 2012 12:37:16 +0100

“Be part of the content ecosystem, not just a re-packager of it. Often, people think of themselves as either creators or curators as if these two things are mutually exclusive. What a curator really should do is embrace content as both a maker and an organizer.”

- 5 Tips for Great Content Curation

The top 8 curation tools

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 11:46:09 +0100

Besides being totally focused on improving Bundlr based on our community feedback, we sometimes take a look at other curation tools. We know Bundlr it’s not the perfect tool for every need, and there are very good applications made by great teams out there.

When we started working on Bundlr, back in 2010, there weren’t that many curation tools. But all of a sudden, they started popping up like mushrooms. Some didn’t last long, others are still online and kicking. Some just cloned features, others were game changers.

So, here is our list of the 8 best general-purpose curation tools:

Delicious

The first one (launched in 2003). Used to be only about bookmarking and was used mostly by a tech-friendly audience. But it’s now under new management and aiming for the mainstream crowd.

It’s now the cool boy, and its community is growing very fast. Very simple to use, but remember, it works with just images and videos.

Storify

Curate content in the form of stories. Specialized for journalists.

Scoop.it

The tool is more similar to blogging, that also offers content suggestions. Not our favorite interface design, though.

PearlTrees

The most ambitious tool in terms of organization possibilities. Shame it’s in Flash.

Zootool

A good-looking bookmarking tool, but it’s more focused on private curation.

Gimmebar

As Zootool, a well designed bookmarking tool, with a minimalist approach.

Bundlr

Of course, our baby. We believe it’s the simplest to use and more flexible in terms of use cases.

Here’s a twitter list where you can follow them all. Did we miss any important curation tool? Let us know in the comments…

"We share links to helpful media in our tweets, status updates and even within our blog posts. But a..."

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 11:29:33 +0100

“We share links to helpful media in our tweets, status updates and even within our blog posts. But a thoughtful content curator is more than just a broadcaster of good info. It’s someone who understands their brand and their audience well enough to identify the relevancy of the content, as well as the best context for sharing.”

- The New Rules of Content Creation & Curation

Ways to spice up Education using Bundlr

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 12:54:01 +0100

Remember when school essays used to end with a bibliography, referencing the books we read to write it? Now that’s a thing of the past. All research is done online, and we just add a list of links pointing to where we got our information.

But we didn’t use the entire websites as a source, usually just a couple of paragraphs in a blog post. And maybe one of the links points to a very interesting video, but it’s hidden under a boring URL.

That’s why a bundle is the ideal reference list. It knows there are different kinds of media (photos, videos, presentations or text articles) and it lets you interact with them.

Check out these examples:

But that’s not the only use for Bundlr in Education. Students can use Bundlr to share online study sources with a collaborative bundle. Teachers can provide students with a better looking collection of class materials inside a bundle.

Besides that, in the Bundlr community there are several educators scouting for new tools to help them in their teaching activites. Take a look at theses bundles: