Has social bookmarking service Clipmarks been bought by Forbes Magazine? VentureBeat and Mashable reported the New York startup success story earlier this evening.

Founder Eric Goldstein now calls the reports premature. ‘They haven’t paid anything yet as the deal isn’t done,’ Goldstein says.

The deal with Forbes is ‘as much about financing the future of clipmarks as it is about buying it’ according to Goldstein. ‘We haven’t even scratched the surface of what clipmarks can do to help people spread knowledge via the web. This deal is about helping us take it to the next level.’

Clipmarks has ‘a major product release’ coming in September that will extend Clipmarks on to other websites. ‘We want to let you access and share your clips or other people’s clips wherever you go on the web, whether it’s on Facebook, MySpace, Netvibes, your blog, wherever. We want to be the default way that people share and discuss things they find on the web.’

Mashable’s Pete Cashmore had been skeptical of Clipmarks value to Forbes, calling the javascript interface ‘a little odd’ and questioning whether Clipmarks had much traction beyond ‘a dedicated audience of less technical users’.

Eric Goldstein responds that the interface was designed to let people rapidly view and comments on small clips of information about lots of diverse topics and toggle between clips without delay. ‘Quite honestly, I am extremely proud of our interface and the work our team put in to make it perform so well.

Goldstein does not dispute Clipmarks audience may be less technical than at sites such as Digg.com. ‘Clipmarks appeals to knowledge seekers who are curious and open-minded. If you happen to be technologically proficient, that’s great. But it really doesn’t matter to us.’

Goldstein says Clipmarks edge comes from a focus on small bits of information. ‘In a world where time is scarce and information is nearly unlimited, it’s imperative that people filter it for each other. The best way to do this is by clipping the bits that matter most to each person and then providing them a platform to share and discuss what they clip. I don’t really believe there are any others services out there that make this happen the way we do.’