Today, Yahoo! bought Snip.it, my favorite curating and digital scrapbooking service. Snip.it hosted Iserotope Extras, one of the most popular features of this blog, where I shared some of my favorite articles about education.
I know this is silly, but I’m a little bit sad. And a bit angry.
Sad: Snip.it was great. It was beautiful, it was easy, and it helped deepen the conversation about teaching, reading, and technology. My friends and other loyal Iserotope readers routinely referenced articles I’d collected.
Angry: Everything is gone. If you go to Iserotope Extras now, you’ll get Snip.it’s farewell letter. Snip.it is allowing users to export their articles to HTML or download them to PDF, but I’m nervous about whether my collections will import correctly to another service.
I know this is a typical thing for startups, particularly those whose products are free. One minute they’re there, and the next minute they’re either gone or sold.
One more thing, though. I’m appreciative. Snip.it not only helped me share articles, but it was extremely supportive of Iserotope and The Kindle Classroom Project. Thank you, Snip.it, for donating the Kindle and the subscription to The New Yorker.
As far as next steps, I’d like to rebuild Iserotope Extras and find another home for all my articles. Maybe the answer is Annotary or Bundlr, two semifinalists when I chose Snip.it. Or maybe I’ll move to Scoop.it or Learnist or something similar. There are plenty of options, but not too many great ones. If you have ideas, please let me know!
Really confused??? I just can’t believe that my collections have gone. I spent ages building up a South America collection. It had all the places I want to visit, hostels, travel info, really specific details for my trip. And now it’s all gone?! I actually can’t believe they have done this. With no warning whatsoever. So upset!!!
Dear Hayley, I’m upset, too! I know there’s always a risk in trusting startups with our information, but Snip.it’s acquisition was a shock to me as well.
Your South America collection isn’t completely gone, though — you can download the PDFs (that are interactive) or export all your links to another service. But yeah, it’s not ideal, and the whole shutting-everything-down-all-at-once was tough to swallow. I wonder why Snip.it and Yahoo! couldn’t give us any warning.
Let’s keep in touch about next steps. I’m going to try to find another service and then export everything there — but I haven’t found anything really good yet. A list to consider: Bundlr, Annotary, Clipboard, and Clipix. I’ll keep you posted. Please let me know if you find something really good. Thanks again!