When it comes to online bookmarking tools, you definitely have a lot of choices. As a matter of fact, I’ve already covered a lot of bookmarking apps here including Neat Bookmarks and Secure Bookmarks. This time, it’s a minimalist smart bookmarking tool called “Piconka”. Anyways, let’s see if this bookmarking tool can also live up to your standards.

What is it and what does it do

Main Functionality

Piconka is a smart bookmarking tool/browser extension for Chrome that also acts like a web clipper. What’s good about it is that it lets you save all sorts of web content via drag and drop. Plus, it saves everything to your Google Drive, Dropbox or Box account. Other than this, Piconka also flaunts a neat popup sidebar (visual menu) that displays all of your bookmarks in a tiled layout.

Pros

• Easy to use
• Stable and responsive
• Can bookmark images, texts and web pages via drag and drop – you can also bookmark an image just by hovering your mouse cursor over it then say “bookmark”
• Features a visual bookmarks menu that appears as a popup sidebar
• You can sort out your bookmarked content by tags
• You can add a bookmark to “favorites”
• Built-in search and sharing options
• You can email your bookmarked links and pages in bulk
• Automatically saves your bookmarked items to your Google Drive, Dropbox or Box account
• Supports offline access

Cons

• Needs to provide options for better bookmark management – you cannot sort out your bookmarks by date, category, tags, type, etc.

Discussion

After installing the Piconka extension to your browser, you will be asked to register an account and link your desired cloud storage. Speaking of which, this extension currently supports Google Drive, Box and Dropbox. Therefore, it’s up to you to choose the cloud storage account that you want to link to the said extension.

Once you’ve successfully linked your cloud storage account, you may close your Piconka dashboard. After which, you may surf the web like you usually do. Now, if you find a text, image or page that you wish to bookmark, here’s what you need to do:

• For images, links and pages – just hover your mouse over the image, link or page then drag and drop it to the floating square icon that will appear on your screen. Once added, the plus icon inside the square will turn into a check mark.
• For texts – highlight the text that you wish to bookmark then drag and drop it to the floating square icon.

Note that every time you add a new item to your bookmarks list, the extension’s visual menu will appear on the right side of your screen. Unlike your browser’s default bookmarks list, the extension’s visual menu flaunts a tiled layout so you can easily view the thumbnails for each page or link. The images will be shown as is.

Now, if you want to sort out and manage your bookmarked items, you can just click the extension’s icon on the omnibar. This will display the visual menu. In the visual menu, you can search for bookmarks using the search bar. You can also click the small buttons on the side to view your previous bookmark links as well as your favorite bookmarks.

All in all, Piconka appears to be a simple tool for clipping and bookmarking all sorts of web content. It’s good because it provides an easy way for you to bookmark any image, page or link that you can find. It’s just a bummer that it doesn’t fare too well when it comes to bookmark management. It could’ve been much better if the extension has also provided a more comprehensive dashboard wherein you can view and manage your bookmarked items. Unfortunately, its current dashboard is only meant for linking your cloud storage account.

Conclusion and download link

As a bookmarking tool, Piconka appears to do well. It’s drag and drop feature is nice as well. It also makes it easier for you to browse your recent bookmarks thru its visual menu. However, it’s not the best choice for bookmark management. So it’s either you access and sort out your bookmarks on your cloud storage or you can opt to find a simpler bookmarking tool that offers support for better bookmark management. Nevertheless, this app is stable enough for you to use on a regular basis so go ahead and check it out.

Price: Free

Version reviewed: 1.4.6

Requires: Chrome on Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, Linux and Mac OS X

Piconka homepage