Earl is a tool for managing your bookmarks and sharing links with your friends. it stores your links in an online database and lets you retrieve them via a web interface .

The web interface allows you catagorise your bookmarks , search for them and share them with others . You can store your bookmarks your own private tree or in a public tree with other's urls. Every time you click a that takes you out of earl a redirect record is stored that allows users to gauge how popular the link is .

Adding urls to earl is easy , you don't even need a login , however if you do have a login you will get far more from the site. Registered users (its free) can use bookmarklets to automate the adding procedure . It can be a simple as clicking a button on your 'Bookmarks Toolbar' which prompts you to describe it then submits it to the database . From there you can then move it to a suitable place or leave it in your default folder.

The target audience for Earl is pretty much anyone that uses the web . Instead of having one central site (like deli.cio.us) an organisation or a group of friends could have their own Earl system. This way a personalised search engine can evolve (kind of like a wiki) which reflects the proclivities of its users instead of trying to deal with spammers and other meanings of search terms.

If you are interested in running your own Earl system please let me know and i we can arrange a trial . Earl is open source software , i just haven't released it yet , so it wont cost you anything. You will need Perl , Apache and Mysql.

give it a try at earl.amias.org.uk or view the latest links as lolcats