Google provides a service to Gmail subscribers to catalogue bookmarks for personal use, but does not provision for sharing of links or for caching or storing of articles. FURL provides a free service for bookmark cataloguing, creation of shared thematic bookmark groups and web consistency; storage of articles on web links which remain consistent as long as the subscriber wishes.

This service (Http://www.furl.net) designed for sharing grouped thematic bookmarks can be used to collate quality articles from multiple interested parties which can then be shared between a public or private audience. In basic terms, bookmarks collected from within a group searching on a theme can be cataloged. Each article can be stored within FURL as a unique sharable URL which can then be referenced within a newsletter, publication or web page. These links do not have a shelf life outside the control of the FURL account holder, protecting future referencing for embedded links in distributed electronic publications.

FURL and web to eMail are successfully used together in the design of newsletters. Referenced articles are stored in FURL and linked in newsletters for the article to be opened in a web browser. Web to eMail “mailto” links also point to articles stored in FURL addresses rather than the original location.