Iterasi is a Firefox add-on that rethinks bookmarking. Rather than saving a URL, or even a thumbnail of a page, Interasi saves a copy of the entire page. Then you can share how the page looked when you viewed it. There are several options for sharing your saved pages. You can e-mail, send people to a direct Iterasi page, or even embed the page within a page on your own site.

By default, everything you save in Iterasi (called “notarizing”) is public. These are then automatically shared on a public page (here’s Webmonkey’s), with new pages available via RSS. You can choose to have individual items marked private to remove them from public view, but then they won’t be viewable by anyone not logged into your account.

Saving the exact page is often useful for developers. We want to see the code that makes up a page. When Iterasi saves a page, it includes the output of the scripts on the page. So, if you have already run some JavaScript, the changes will be apparent in the Iterasi version. This makes Iterasi a good tool for sharing snapshots of application state among developers.

The embed feature is also useful for bloggers. Often we want to share the details of a site so readers can explore. Standard screenshots go a long way, and we’ll continue to use those where appropriate. Now we can add Iterasi as another tool. Notarized pages, embedded within a blog post, can let users explore more than with just a screenshot.

Of course, there are downsides. The notarizing process takes place in real time, lasting from 15 seconds to as much as a minute, depending on how complex the page is. While it processes, you’re locked out of the page you’re notarizing, as well as any other tabs you have opened.

It would also be nice to be able to get my data out of Iterasi. I’d like to use the thumbnails and other data to incorporate them into my own site or other applications. While Iterasi may look like yet another bookmarking service, it’s more. If it had an API, it could become a platform for creating even more advanced tools.

See also:

• Tutorial: Using the Delicious API
• And We Bid You Good Downloading