Company: Overview
Raw Sugar is somewhat similar to Rollyo, which we profiled yesterday. Raw Sugar basically combines del.icio.us type social bookmarking, with search (of your and other’s bookmarks, along with google results).
Social Bookmarking
You can save a URI found in Raw Sugar Search results, or use a bookmarklet to save any browsed page (support at this time for firefox and explorer only). You can also add a description and tags. Your tags are saved on your user page with a unique URI. This page is also customizable with images, pictures, etc.
For instance, taking someone at random, here is Frank, who is apparently just about to complete a world class bellyflop and likes, among other things, kung fu (if his tags are indicative of his interests). He also likes the Ramones, which is one of my favorite bands (reminds me that I need to create a Ramones station on Pandora).
Search
Raw Sugar offers a nice search service that leverages tagged pages and presents them in search results (keyword and tagged based results look to be mixed, which seems right). They also have a “refine” option after your first search, which further narrows the results set (something Technorati really needs to add).
Given that Del.icio.us recently added search, Raw Sugar may have a long hill to climb.
Overall, it’s a useful service that could use a little jazzing (and ajaxing) up of its user interface. The Raw Sugar blog can be found here.
Team
Ofer Ben-Shachar, CEO and Co-Founder
Frank Smadja, VP Engineering
Monica Laurence, VP Marketing
Additional Reading
BillSaysThis (regarding RSS feed functionality, I looked but can’t find it), Hatch.org, Businessweek, Guy Tavor,