Y Combinator summer startup Snipd is working on a bookmarking-like service that saves pieces of a website, such as text and photos. The service is in closed alpha, but Webmonkey got a chance to check it out.

To simply save a page with the Snipd bookmarklet is fast. Just click and everything happens behind the scenes. Tagging or describing the page you’re saving takes a bit more time, but also happens directly on the page without having to visit Snipd’s site.

The real power of Snipd is the ability to “snip” pieces of content from a page. You can grab text, images, even video. The Snipd content can be shared by email, or directly on your stream, in a Tumblr-esque view.

When multiple items are saved from a single page, they are shown together. Looking back at my stream, one might guess that it takes more than just a few clicks to curate the content.

The link+commentary style of Delicious feels a little stale compared to lively Snipd. There is more to a web page than its URL, and Snipd lets you zero in on the pieces that are important, then share them.

With only seed funding from Y Combinator, a summer, and a team of five (two of which are back at school), Snipd has made significant progress. The team spent this week in the Techcrunch 50 DemoPit and was leading the vote after the first day.

See also:

• Clip And Save Entire Web Pages With Iterasi
• A Better Tumblr Is On The Way
• Tutorial: Build a Simple Bookmark Manager With Ning