Web 2.0 & Del.icio.us
Another Web 2.0 service that I use extensively is del.icio.us. Del.icio.us is a social bookmarking, social software web service for storing and sharing web bookmarks (wikipedia).
Del.icio.us played a huge role in opening my eyes to Web 2.0.
I spend quie a bit of time on the web exploring. When I find a site that I'd like to bookmark, I save it in del.icio.us.
Since del.icio.us is a web based service, everything is saved remotely & I can access my list of bookmarks at any computer with a connection.
When I save a link in delicious, I'm prompted to add descriptive tags, or keywords to each bookmark.
This is where the magic happens. Through these freely chosen keywords, we are collectively categorizing these links. This is called folksonomy and is one of the driving forces behind web 2.0.
One example:
Here are all of my bookmarks
By clicking on one of the existing tags on the right hand side, I can pull up every bookmark with that tag.
Here are my bookmarks that I've tagged with real estate.
If I go to the bottom of the related tags list, I can click on realestate from all users and I'll see this list, which are the latest bookmarks that any user has tagged with realestate.
One of the best features in the inbox. If I notice that a certain user is tagging great stuff, I can subscribe to their feed. If I want to stay on top of a topic, I can subscribe to that tag. Now everytime that I open my del.icio.us inbox, it's filled with bookmarks that I've subscribed to.
I find tons of great information every day, just by opening my del.icio.us inbox.
That's just scratching the surface. As with most of these great new services, the best way to learn about it is to try it out. If you see the value, do a little digging and learn how better utilize it. I love finding new aspects of services that I've been using for months.
Have fun & let me know how it goes!
posted by Andy Kaufman at 10:11 PM
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