So Long, Springpad

If you haven't heard, the organizing website Springpad is going bye-bye on the 25th of this month. If you've got stuff on Springpad that you want to keep, better get it now, because there will be no grace period - once it's gone, it gone.

I want to take a moment (or, you know - another moment; I've been doing this all day) to process my grief at the loss of Springpad; I relied on it heavily. Springpad was like a Pinterest for when you wanted to actually get something done. I already went through my denial: That can't be right! This can't be happening!; bargaining: Wait, come back! I'll pay an annual fee! (Well. A small one.) and Why can't Google buy Springpad?; anger: I can't believe an ugly, clumsy website like Evernote survived and Springpad is gone! WHY GOD WHY??; and I'm  working on acceptance.

I'll be a great deal closer to peace if I can find an adequate replacement, but that's proving difficult. I liked the visual organization of Springpad, a grid view of your "notebooks," one for each category of your own choosing. Each item within the notebook was sort of a sub-notebook where you could save notes, images, details, thought, or reminders related to that item. Many of the possible replacements are organized in a list format, which is less intuitive for me; others allow you to save only links, or don't allow additional comment besides the original upload or link.

I've tried out a number of contenders. Evernote first, because Springpad has a direct link to save your information to Evernote. It's true that I didn't give it much of a chance, because it immediately started annoying me by not being Springpad. And I hated the look of it; it's organized in lists, with tiny little letters, and the front page is all of my notes, unsorted except chronologically, which is distracting and overwhelming.

Pocket is useful for links only. Zimilate is in beta, which makes me think I'd probably get to like it and then have it disappear again. Thinkery uses hashtags to categorize, which I am likely to forget which ones I've used before, and is just a clumsy form for visual thinkers.  Simplenote is too simple, more like a reminder list than a planning tool. Hackpad is laid out like a blog, so I can only see one item at a time. Memit seems more focused on the networking aspects - the newsfeed-like feature takes up most of the start page - and I couldn't care less about that. How many social platforms do I need?

The most promising two that I found were Icebergs and Clipix. Icebergs is a bit cutesy, referring to users as "penquins" and saved items as "icedrops." Both are laid out in grid form, useful for visual thinkers, and both suffer from the same short-term drawback, in that there is no easy way to transfer my existing information from Springpad, but I can live with that. I put my stuff on Evernote, because Springpad makes that easy, and will slowly build back what I need. I'm going with Clipix, I think. Visually it is the most like Springpad. [EDIT: Clipix does, in fact have a Springpad import tool. Trying it out right now.)

There are many more possibilities! For a much longer list, with brief summaries, check out this spreadsheet.

Though I haven't been blogging, I have been potting! Next glaze firing is Sunday.