I am one person among other millions people who always work in front of the computer and surfing the internet. When I found an interesting site I would mark on my browser and later on when I want to read that information again, they are there ready for me anytime.
Now the bookmarking technologies have been developed so quickly; there are many features enhancing the use of those bookmarks and encouraging the social interaction. For example, we are not only able to save our favorite websites and share to friends, but we can also look at what other people have found interesting enough to tag. Most social bookmarking sites allow us to browse through the items based on most popular, recently added, or belonging to a certain category, such as shopping, technology, politics, blogging, news, and so on. Even though I have heard about this term “social bookmarking” and its advantages, I never tried to use this tool until this class. Below is my experience of first-time exploring social bookmarking site.
I was assigned to explore the “delicious”, one of the most famous social bookmaking sites.
http://www.delicious.com
I first went for the subscription and signed in to the system. Then I tried bookmarking 5 different websites and tagging those sites with appropriate terms. I was first confused with the tag field, I don’t know what should be put here: “Should it be two-separated word or just one?” I visited the FAQ site for this specific topic and found more explanation. The tagging rules are so different from the tags of the blogs (I tried on WordPress and each time we want each tag to be separated, we just put comma in between). For the social bookmarking sites, however, each time we put a space that means those are completely different tags! I also went to Netvouz, another social bookmarking site,
http://www.netvouz.com
It applies the same tagging rules as in the Delicious. Later I just recognized that it is reasonable having the same rules among each service providers because those tags can be searched across these social bookmarking sites.
Another useful feature of the social bookmarking site that I like and is different from the one of my web browser (IE7) is there is a field called “note” where we can put a brief annotation/description as a reminder.
Next is an interesting feature of the social bookmarking site. After I finished bookmarking and tagging those sites, I tried to find out if others, who use the same bookmarking tool– Delicious, use the same tags. Normally, Delicious will show numbers of people who also bookmark the same website as we do. In this way, we know how popular those websites are. Moreover, when we click on those numbers, the screen will show “Everyone’s bookmarks for this web page.” This is the way how we can find others who share the same interest with us, and we can build the network through this feature.
Then I tried other way to determine who tag the same site as I did. I chose the search functionality. Once I tried three tags in the searchbox (at a time) and hit enter, apart from the websites along with the detail that I have bookmarked earlier, the result also shows all Everybody’s bookmarks or “Search all of Delicious for “longman”. In other words, although those people “the cloud” use the same tag “Longman”, for example, it does not mean that they bookmark the same site as we did. I think this is a really good feature; we can track back and have an idea what are other related sites within our own interest that we might have not known before. Additionally, the result also shows numbers of people who bookmarked those websites as well as tags that they used. Regarding the tag aspect, apart from the profile view, we can see if other uses the same tag for the same website that we bookmarked through the feature called “See all bookmarks tagged”. For example, I used “accessibility” for the w3c validation website, when I search by choosing this feature, I can see other tags, such as “w3c”, “validation”, “standard”, and so on.
After exploring the Delicious site, I tried to search for the tags I used on Netvouz. Again, I first tried on “longman”. The first retrieved item listed is the same website that I bookmarked.
http://www.ldoceonline.com/
The following retrieved items are other Longman-related website arranged by number of users who bookmarked those sites. It is notable that the fifth item is the same site as the first one (that I bookmarked). However, these are the bookmarks from all private users.
Comparing between Delicious and Netvouz, Delicious has more members/users observing from the numbers of people listed on the result page. It means that there is more possibility to find interesting sites as well as building network in the Delicious. Considering the tags used for the same website, there is not much difference between these two tools. However, the result page and the detail displayed of Delicious and Netvouz are rather different (by the default view). Personally, I like the result page of Netvouz more than the other one. First, there is a link for opening websites in the separate window. Additionally, URLs are also shown explicitly. This is convenient for users to navigate back and forth. Furthermore, folders that contain each retrieved website are reported. In this way, users can have more idea about categories of the sites. Nonetheless, report of the first saved user is also helpful. We can trace back the profile of that person, i.e. the save date that may indicate the creation of the site. In addition, the direct link to save of Delicious is convenient for users who want to add related websites.
In conclusion, Delicious and Netvouz have similar and difference features/functions, it depends on users and their preferences. I think the most important thing of the social bookmarking site is the retrieval capability and added feature to enhance interaction among users in this bookmarking community.
