Antisocial Internet Behavior »
As mentioned recently, I've been trying Scuttle, and I'm quite happy with it thus far. However, I'm using it as a personal online bookmarks repository, not a directory of the web. Put simply, I don't use that many bookmarks, but the ones I do have I'd like to be able to access, no matter which computer or device I'm using. Scuttle gives me that option, plus it's on my server so I have the data where I can get to it, back it up, change it, tweak it or whatever.
While I like the tagging feature of del.icio.us, I don't like that the service isn't available many times when I need it, and there's not an easy way to update/backup/restore the information.
But what I really don't get is the "social" aspect of services such as del.icio.us. I have perhaps once or twice gone browsing tags to see what other people have in their bookmarks, but let's face it, without a standardized tagging structure, it really isn't that useful. I might tag something with mt, while someone else might use Movable Type, a third person will use MovableType and a fourth Moveable Type (sic). The variations are literally endless.
So I end up searching for things where I need an answer, and more often than not, that isn't in my bookmarks. My bookmarks contain things that I'll need to look up because they sounded interesting when I came across them, and I haven't been able to go back as yet. Recipes for instance. Places that I'd like to visit. Pages accessed with some frequency (the school calendar is an example of this one).
In the end, I'm not making an index of the web - I'm making a repository of information that I'll use. Want to use it too? Help yourself - but I don't frequently find myself looking for a reason to go look at other people's repositories. If I want to find something specific, I'll search. I haven't truly "browsed" in years, so perhaps, as with so many other things, I just don't get it.
Comments (7)
The biggest part of the socialness that I take away from del.icio.us is the ability to subscribe to other people's bookmark feeds. I like to see what my friends, colleagues, and other net folks are thinking about, and often they post those things to their del.icio.us logs, not to their regular blogs.
Also, I've come across many an interesting site that I might not otherwise have discovered by looking at linklogs of other people who have linked to the same things I link to.
Sure, when I want to find out an answer for something where I know the question, I'll use search to look for specific topics. But I'm also interested in finding out about things I didn't know that I wanted to know about. That's where del.icio.us's socialness comes in.
Perhaps another important distinction is in the way I feed data to del.icio.us. For me, it's not really a bookmarks manager. When I want to bookmark something that I'll refer to over and over again, I put it in my browser's bookmarks. 90% of the time, I use del.icio.us when I'm reading a blog or a news site, and I want to make a note of an interesting item, to be read later, and shared with others... not necessarily for my permanent reference.
It seems that del.icio.us (and other web-based bookmark managers) is generally divided into these two schools of thought: people like me who use it as a linklog of sorts, to keep track of a running set of interesting articles or blog entries, many of which might be referred to once or twice, and people (if my perception is correct) like you, who use it to manage a set of bookmarks for frequently-accessed sites. Luckily, they don't put any restrictions on how you use it, so we're both right. :-)
Posted by Peter | March 30, 2005 12:41 PM
Understood, and those are good points. But as I mentioned, I'm not sure if I like the social aspect much. I barely feel like I can keep up with what I have now - one thing I don't often need is more information...
Posted by Chad Everett | March 30, 2005 1:54 PM
Yeah, it is a lot of information to take in if you're already overloaded. I've been able to handle it pretty well, though... I've become quite adept at scanning through a list of titles and only clicking/reading the ones that look like they might be of some interest to me.
Posted by Peter | March 30, 2005 2:13 PM
Hi,
I do very much like the social aspect of del.icio.us, but I would not be able to explain it as well as Jon Udell does in these screencasts:
http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2005/03/07.html#a1191
http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2005/03/14.html#a1193
By the way, wanna know how I quickly found back these screencasts? I looked in Jon Udells bookmarks tagged screencast :-)
Posted by Pascal Van Hecke | April 4, 2005 2:34 PM
Interesting point, Pascal - but at the same time, that's not so much an example of "social" bookmarks. After all, you went straight to Jon's own bookmarks. Assuming I did the same, you could go to mine and find the same thing. When you go to someone else's is when the social aspect becomes important.
You can also search Google - the earliest (relevant) result was near the top of the page. Above the fold as it were. But again, that's not really exploiting the "social" aspect. The social aspect comes into play more when you want to see what everyone else (as opposed to someone else) thinks about a particular subject. Screencasts in general, for instance.
And in that case, it is only useful if you know the tag(s) used by others. If they use "screencast", you're set. If they use "sc", you could get the result you want or you could get South Carolina. Or even Silly Chimpanzees. Until there is a standard, it's hit and miss at best.
That's not to say you can't find anything interesting - just that it's not as easy as just picking your tags, because the one link you'd really want may not be under the tag for which you search...
Posted by Chad Everett | April 4, 2005 2:44 PM
Hi again,
apparently backtrack is not enabled (or just invisible?): I posted a reaction at:
http://pascal.vanhecke.info/2005/04/05/what-use-is-the-social-aspect-of-delicious/
Posted by Pascal Van Hecke | April 4, 2005 8:03 PM
Trackback is turned on. I received perhaps five just last night (not yours, though). Make sure that auto-discovery is turned on on your side - or you can enter the trackback URL manually (you'll need to view source to see it, as it's embedded in the HTML).
Posted by Chad Everett | April 5, 2005 7:19 AM