del.icio.us is a social bookmarking site which was created in 2003 by Joshua Schacter and today boasts 2 million plus users. It was designed to be a site which would help Internet users organise online media in a quick, easy to access and user-friendly format. Now owned by Yahoo! the primary function of del.icio.us is to allow you to store all of your bookmarks online and then to allow you to access those bookmarks from any computer anywhere in the world. del.icio.us is far more of a community based tool in comparison to the other social bookmarking tools out there, as it allows others to see your bookmarks. Essentially it lets you identify other people whose interests and concerns parallel yours and grants you access to all of their bookmarks as well.
The core of del.icio.us is content sharing but while data published on this site is open to the public, the site also supports a comprehensive privacy policy which is backed by Yahoo!. If you want something to remain private all you need to do is create it as a private bookmark – that way it will only be accessible to you.
The Features
- Keeping links to your favourite articles, blogs, music, reviews etc, at an online destination that makes it easy for you as the user to access from any computer connected to the Internet.
- Sharing your favourites with friends, family, co-workers, and the del.icio.us community in general.
- Learning about new things. This social bookmarking tool can be used to browse and search the entire site to discover the ‘cool’ and useful bookmarks that others have saved - which is made easy with tags. This helps keep you up to date on the latest happenings.
del.icio.us is specifically useful for organising online content as it makes use of a hierarchal tagging system. When you bookmark content on del.icio.us you can assign tags to it; tags are a one-word description, or a series of one word descriptors, that you assign to the content of your bookmarks.
If this is all a little overwhelming there is a thorough help system which assists new del.icio.us users. The team at del.icio.us have a few suggestions about what you can do on this popular social bookmarking site:
- Research - del.icio.us is an extremely helpful tool for researchers – if there is a topic that you are interested in all you need to do is use this site as a tool to keep track of all articles, blog posts etc. written on the topic. You’ll soon have a very broad, interesting base from which to start your research.
- Wishlist - Creating a Wishlist, which your family and friends can utilise on your next birthday is another great feature of del.icio.us. Go to any commerce site, select the items you’re after, save them to del.icio.us and tag them as Wishlist. It’ll then be easy for your friends, family or colleagues to find at: http://del.icio.us/username/wishlist. If you’re luck you’ll never be subjected to something you stick into the re-gift draw ever again.
- Podcast - del.icio.us is an awesome tool for podcasters as it not only allows you to post your podcasts but creates an RSS feed for them as well. It’s also a valuable site for podcast enthusiasts as all you’ll need to do to listen to some fab podcasts straight from the website is check out what’s listed under the mp3+podcast tag.
- Linklog - Save bookmarks to interesting websites, maybe your favourite YouTube clips and add a bit of a description to create a lightweight linklog. You can the use linkrolls or the daily blog posting feature to include your del.icio.us bookmarks on your blog or website - nifty isn’t it?
- Collaboration - del.icio.us allows users to create a group with a shared account. This is particularity useful for companies - employees can use one central point to share all exciting new information and useful articles on developments within their industry.
- Another awesome feature is the del.icio.us hotlist which is displayed on the homepage. This shows the most “popular” and "recent" pages that users find interesting. Gone are the days of having to search for what you should be reading (what bliss).
Getting Started
The registration process is pretty simple; all you need to do is fill in details which include your name, email and password for access purposes. You’ll then need to download the del.icio.us buttons to your toolbar which allows for easy tagging of items. It is not essential to install these buttons to use the del.icio.us site; it’s just a hell of a lot easier.
As previously mentioned, a comprehensive help section allows users an in-depth look at how to use this site, and is very useful. It would appear this site was designed for the “average Joe” to use. With easy explanations, it’s a good example of a social bookmarking site to watch.
Prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | NextOther Articles in the How To... Social Media Series :
- Part 1: Social Media - The down low
- Part 2: Social Networking - You can never have too many friends
- Part 3: Social Bookmarking and Aggregating - Avoiding overload
- Part 4: Content Sharing - So hot right now
- Part 5: Blogging - Starting a blog baby, starting a blog
