When I began to use the social bookmarking site del.icio.us a few months ago, I was mainly interested in the storage, management, and "access from anywhere" features. I had hundreds of Web favorites saved in several browsers on several computers; because of this, it became difficult to relocate specific bookmarked sites. Being able to tag and store the bookmarks in one online location was the solution to this problem.
I learned recently, however, that the advantages of using social bookmarks also include connecting people and allowing the sharing of bookmarked sites. While reviewing some of the tags I had been assigning to my saved sites, I noticed in the sidebar the networking area of del.icio.us. A del.icio.us network functions as a "people-aggregator," connecting users with friends, family, coworkers, and even new acquaintances.  Every saved bookmark in del.icio.us provides a link to a list of individuals who have also saved that bookmark to their favorites. Clicking on a user's name from this list displays a complete list of their saved bookmarks and tags. By looking over the user's tag cloud, one can get a pretty good idea about the user's interests; if some or all of these interests match your own, you can become a fan by adding the user to your network.
Though not certain that my profile was found using this method, I noticed last week that I was starting to accumulate fans. Viewing one of these fan's network, I stumbled across the saved bookmarks of David Warlick, a well-known speaker, writer, and thinker in educational technology. What a great find! I have seen him speaks several times at conferences, where he usually shares a treasure trove of Web resources. I added him to my network, and now I can easily access his most recent bookmarks as well as view bookmarks he has tagged in the past on various subjects of interest.
Labels: social bookmarking, Web 2.0 |
