Kwout – ‘A Brilliant Way to Quote’

Kwout, a new service launched yesterday is a great addition for bloggers who need to copy quotes, images, or links, but may not have the time to do so. Its quite simple to use.

“kwout” is a way you quote a part of a web page as an image with an image map.

To use this service, all you need is to add our bookmarklet to your favorite browser.

First, go to the main page, and type in the web address containing the quotes that you wish to copy. You may also use the bookmarklets provided at the bottom of the page for easier access. After the screenshot has loaded, drag the mouse across the area that you wish to create a quote from, and click the “cut out’ button. A page with the embed code will be shown, with various options, such as posting to Flickr, Tumblr, or changes to the image including rounded corners, shadows, or no links (no image map).

While this may appear to be a great service from the main page, while using I have experienced some minor and major problems. First of all, the load time for the creation of the screenshot is extremely long. For very fast loading pages, including Google, the page became unresponsive, and never loaded the page correctly. The way the tool creates the screenshot isn’t great either, as it snaps to areas, instead of having full control. While this isn’t the first tool of its kind, it is certainly one that may have more potential as more improvements are introduced. Other relatively new services include SnipQuote and Clipmarks. These tools need accounts, defeating the purpose of quickly linking to other quotes.