Jun 30 2007
What is Social Bookmarking?
Social bookmarking is a way for a person to find, track, and follow websites that they enjoy. Relevancy of sites is determined by the web community. If you haven’t used one before I suggest it is worth your time to get familiar with one. Think about the way you use Google today. Most people use Google search to find a site based on information you provide (search terms) and if you like the site then bookmark it in your browser. With a social bookmarking site the idea is very similar. You now have the ability to easily create your own personal website portal (portal: a website that functions as a starting point with links to other sites and content) that you can share with the web community.
There are many social bookmarking websites that are very popular today. Sites like Technorati, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, BUMPzee are just a few of the popular choices. Many of these sites have plugins that you can use with Firefox, a popular alternative browser. Plugins make the job of marking and organizing your favorites much easier. All of these sites are based on the same premise but have different features and strengths.
Technorati: is an Internet search engine for blogs. Visitors index websites by “tagging” them and find desired information by category and searches which include the latest news, popular books and music. Once you tag a site all recent postings on are aggregated and displayed on your home page.
del.icio.us: web service for storing, sharing, and discovering web bookmarks. One of the nice features of “delicious” is the ability to use your bookmarks on any computer anywhere. The delicious home page has a hotlist and a “popular” list which can be a great resource. You can also share you bookmark list (if you opt to) with the community as well as look at other members bookmarks as another way to explore.
StumbleUpon: is a plugin that allows its users to discover and rate webpages, photos, videos, and news articles. A new site recommendation is displayed when the user clicks the Stumble button on the browser’s toolbar. What a great way to discover new websites. StumbleUpon uses a recommendation system that selects which new web page to display based on the user’s preferences and ratings, ratings by friends, and by the ratings of users with similar interests. You rate sites by a simple thumbs up or thumbs down selection.
BUMPzee: BUMPzee is a niche blog aggregator with a active community. The site is organized into bite-sized communities which pulls the latest relevant blog entries. I recommend this site if you plan on setting up a blog of your own in the future.
There are many other sites and tools out there. What other sites do you use?
Regards,
Howard
Nice post for beginners. I’ve never heard of BUMPzee until this article, not bad. You should check out http://www.youlicit.com. It’s like delicious and stumbleupon combined, except, you get related sites. Their search results are pretty good as well. Their Firefox extension is worth checking out.