Trail Marking the Internet
If, like me, you are easily led from web site to web site in aimless wandering, odds are you occasionally find something useful. It helps to keep a map of these places, but the browser bookmark menu quickly becomes unwieldy. Hmmm…did I put that site under “Video Sites” or “Funny Sites?” Further, if most of your time-wasting browsing happens at work it can be a problem if you get the axe and all of your great sites are bookmarked in your work browser. Enter the world of social bookmarking.
Popular social bookmarking sites let you set up an account, then copy/paste URLs of sites and pages you find interesting. If this sounds unwieldy, not to worry – you can install a browser toolbar bookmarklet that allows you to bookmark to your favorite sites with one click.
Social bookmarking is also a way to share your finds and access the gems of other wanderers. As if it was not easy enough to waste time by yourself, now you can identify like-minded people who can coerce you into wasting even more time. It is a fascinating romp through the web with a collective conscious undercurrent.
Tagging. Some sites allow you tag bookmarks by typing in terms (tags) that are meaningful to you. You can then sort and find bookmarks by the tags. One of the benefits of tagging is that organization and classification becomes a collective activity, with tags organized in “clouds” that display more popular tags in a larger size. So, the larger the word in a tag cloud, the more people used that word to describe the site.
Recommendations/Voting. Because users rate bookmarks, social bookmarking sites become a collective rating of what is most interesting and useful on the web. Most sites allow you to “vote” for bookmarks other users have posted. And, based on what you have saved and voted on, the sites can link you up with other users with similar interests.
Search. A little realized benefit of these sites is as an alternative to Google. Search your favorite social bookmarking site and you’ll get results based on how relevant other users think the content is, not just on how well someone optimized the site. This is a great way to find specific information, and can also be a useful for getting cultural insight into what webizens are liking/saying/reading/doing.
One of the most popular sites, del.icio.us is mercifully simple and lets you enter a title, description and tags for bookmarks. You can view sites bookmarked by others or only the sites you have bookmarked. Bookmarks can be searched or browsed via tag clouds. Since del.icio.us is the most widely used site, it provides great insight into what is rising in popularity on the web.
digg is focused on news and articles where popularity is established by user ranking. Users post interesting articles and sites and other users “digg” it if they find it interesting. Ultimately, the most popular diggs bubble to the top. digg can be extremely addictive; you can spend all day finding, posting, digging and commenting. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
Like del.icio.us, reddit is fairly simple to use, and like digg, bookmarks are submitted and rated by users. In addition, as you rate bookmarks, reddit “learns” your preferences and begins to serve up links based on what it thinks you’ll like. Bookmarks are clearly labeled so you know how recently links were posted.
I am new to Stumbleupon and not sure I have it entirely figured out. Stumbleupon is stronger in the “social” component but I find it less functional. This site is great for aimless web wandering, but I find del.icio.us and digg to be far more useful and fun.
Overall, if you’re looking for good functionality to manage bookmarks independent of your browser, del.icio.us is the site for you. If you are an info junkie, check out Digg. However, if you are more interested in using a social bookmarking site to discover and share interesting, quirky and downright odd websites, then you might like reddit or Stumbleupon.
