FAQ About Rebranding Hook to Hookmark, Lite tier to Basic, and Essentials to Standard

The purpose of this page is to answer questions you may have about the rebranding of the “Hook productivity” Mac app to Hookmark; and rebranding of its Lite and Essentials tiers to “Hookmark Basic” and “Hookmark Standard”, respectively.

Is there a new website?

No, we are not using a new website for this Mac app. Hookmark will continue to use the https://hookproductivity.com website. Changes to the website are being done gradually and it will take several days for all the web pages to be updated.

When did the rebranding take place?

This change took effect on Monday Oct 24, 2022. By sheer coincidence, this is the day that Apple is set to release macOS Ventura and iPadOS 16.

Why was “Hook” renamed to “Hookmark”?

  • Hook has evolved into being a, perhaps the world’s first, contextual, universal bookmarking app. This name better conveys that Hook is both a contextual retrieval tool and a contextual bookmarking app. Since version 2.0, our users have been able to search for bookmarks using the UI and AppleScript. We’ve gradually improve that functionality and intend to build upon it.
  • The new brand, Hookmark, allows the verb “to hook” to stand alone without confusion with the brand. This similarly allows the adjective phrase “hooked together”, and the noun “hook” to be used without confusing it with our brand. This also allows everyone within and beyond the hypertext community to speak of “hooking information together”, whether they use our app or not. Hypertext experts, have for decades been trying to get the bidirectional linking concept to stick. Part of their problem was terminology. The various forms of the word hook (verb, noun, adjective) solve this problem.
  • Incidentally, Hookmark co-inventor, Luc P. Beaudoin, gave a keynote presentation at the Human’22 Hypertext workshop explaining this concept (see Interview with Luc Beaudoin | ACM SIGWEB Newsletter). The need for this functionality is explained in the Manifesto for Ubiquitous Linking, of which he is the general editor. That document too is independent of our brands. These documents and ideas illustrate our commitment to interoperable hyperlinking.
  • The new name aligns with the name of our upcoming iPhone/iPad app, which has been on Apple’s Testflight since 2021, and is due to be released in Q1-2023. We decided in 2021 not to use the brand “Hook” on App Store. This was partly to be visible in App Store searches, but also for same reasons as we are switching Hook to Hookmark. Calling our Mac app “Hookmark” allows us to use the same name for both products.
  • “Hook” is a dictionary word. While thanks to success of our product, the number one result for “Hook app” seems to always be related to our website https://hookproductivity.com or product, searching for “Hook” does not necessarily bring it up because “hook” means too many things. With “Hookmark” as our brand name, search engines will easily be able to infer if/when the user is searching for “Hookmark” in search of information retrieval information, which will bring up hits related to our Hookmark. (No other product in the world is named Hookmark that addresses the market which Hookmark does.)

Our software has evolved continuously and significantly since the first release in 2019, which is why we use an Updates model rather than a traditional version-based payment model.

The new branding will be better reflect the significant, numerous functionality additions nearly ready for release in Hookmark 5 (Dec-Jan?), and that are in product road map for rest of 2023 and beyond.

How can investors and media contact us for more information?

Like our world renown mySleepButton® product, Hookmark is a CogSci Apps® invention. Investors can contact us. We are in a SFU VentureLabs accelerator programme. We are bootstrapped with organic growth. Check out our board of advisors.

Mac journalists, bloggers and podcasters can get in touch for more of the back story and hints about the future.

Our customers give tribute to the transformative value of our software, which is based on Cognitive Productivity books in turn based on integrative design-oriented cognitive science.

Why were the Lite and Essentials tier rebranded to “Hookmark Basic” and “Hookmark Standard”?

The Hookmark product tiers are described here.

We are renaming our Lite tier to Hookmark Basic because Hookmark Basic does a lot more than the original free tier did. Hookmark Basic is no longer a “lightweight”. It can be used by millions of people to do things that they couldn’t do before. We also intend to add new features to Hookmark Basic.

We are renaming our Essentials tier to Standard to better distinguish it from both Basic and Pro tiers. Some of the features that were only in Essentials are now available in the Basic tier. And we intend to add other features to the Basic tier. We didn’t want our non-paying customers to feel that they were lacking features that are necessary to use Hookmark for the long run.

Having said that, the middle tier, Standard, contains features that are worth paying for. Conversely, it contains the additional features that a savvy paying customer would expect to have.

How do these branding changes affect my license?

Your license is not materially affected by this change. The only effect is that the product names are different. Your rights and responsibilities as a user of this software are not affected.

As of 2022-10-24, the next of Paddle emails for purchases of our software will refer to “Hookmark”.

Will my Hook Essentials and Hook Pro license keys still work?

Yes your old license keys will meet the same validity standards as if the name change had not take plan. License keys purchased before and after the change both use the same URL scheme.

Your Updates period is not shortened by this change, it remains the same. Of course, if your Hook Updates period has expired, you will need a new license key to have access to recent Updates of Hookmark.

Will this affect software updates?

These changes will not materially affect software updates. You will just see different names and logos for the products.

Will the rebranding affect the functionality of Hookmark?

The functionality of the software has not changed as part of the rebranding. To make this abundantly clear, we purposefully did not introduce major functional changes in Hookmark 4.0 compared to Hook 3.9..

Having said that, some content created by Hookmark will be slightly different in the ways that one would would expect. See the next question

Automation implications are discussed below

What has changed in the app?

The release notes for Hookmark 4.0 are here.

  1. The default “notes” folder for new installations of Hookmark will now be ~/Documents/Hookmark rather than ~/Documents/Hook. This does not affect prior users
  2. Make Hook File will be replaced with Make Hookmark File, which will create “.hookmark” files. This change did not make it into Hookmark 4.0. We expect it in Hookmark 4.0.1.

Please note that the common (non-brand) word forms (“hook”, “hooks”, “hooked” ) haven’t changed, per Why was “Hook” renamed to “Hookmark”?. Hook term/concepts are not a brand and are available to all to use.

  • HOOKED section of Hookmark context window still has same label.
  • Copy All Hooked Links still has same label
  • Hook to New remains.

  • the label/adjective “HOOKED” has not changed. Hookmark still “hooks” items together, and hows you them.

Has the bundle ID of the app changed?

No, the bundle ID of Hookmark remains the same: com.cogsciapps.hook.

How does this change affect automation ( AppleScript, x-callback-url, Shortcuts)?

  • AppleScript typically relies on app names, not bundleID. Therefore, if you have created any AppleScript that refers to “Hook.app”, you’ll need to rename it Hookmark.app — unless of course you rename Hookmark.app back to Hook.app. If you wish to delay changing your AppleScript, that is the easiest way to do it.
  • macOS Shortcuts automation will not typically be affected by this change (unless it invokes some other automation, such as AppleScript, that depends on app name).
  • Our x-callback-url is not affected by this rebranding.

Have the hook:// URL schemes changed?

No, the hook:// URL schemes have not changed. We are not using Hookmark for them. Shorter is better in this case.

If you don’t know what this means, don’t worry. If you want to know know more, see Custom hook:// sub-schemes.

Have any features been added or removed as part of the rebranding of the product tiers?

In changing to “Hookmark Basic” and “Hookmark Standard”, we have not immediately changed the features of these tiers. The additions to the free tier (now called “Basic”) were made around late 2021 and perhaps earlier.

can I revert from Hookmark 4 to Hook 3.9?

Yes.

Has the Hookmark press kit been updated?

yes: Press – Hookmark

What is your favorite sport?

It depends who you ask at CogSci Apps Corp.. Luc Beaudoin’s favorite sport is Canadian / American football. (The real type, with end zones on either extremity of the playing field.)

Further questions?

If you have other questions please feel free to ask on them on the Hookmark forum or via other support channels.