Looking at a few social bookmarking sites, I chose to play around with both Diigo and delicious, two varyingly popular bookmarking applications for the web, because I was unhappy with the social aspects of Diigo. In the end, though I could not say I established an unequivocal preference for one service over the other as a pure bookmarking tool, delicious stood out because of its social networking capabilities.
To test these applications, I bookmarked five of my favorite literary (news, reviews, etc.) websites and tagged them appropriately (using “literary,” “reviews,” and “books,” for example), and then checked to see how many other people had bookmarked the same sites, as well as checking on similar tag usage:
I found that many more people had linked to these same sites on delicious than had done so on Diigo, owing in part, I imagine, to delicious's much larger user base (reportedly 5.3 million users with over 180 million unique URLs[1]) and popularity.With Diigo, it is very easy to set up an account and begin bookmarking. There is a browser plugin specifically for Chrome, as well as other browsers, though these are external plugins and seem to still be in beta (as is the site itself). I was pleased to see a number of signup options, including the ability to use my already extant (and always ubiquitous) Google account. The site is well-designed and pleasing to browse, though it is heavily reminiscent of Facebook’s aesthetic (and even resembles delicious, which may or may not always have been the case, as the latter site recently underwent a redesign). The bookmarking utility itself is easy to use: you can either use the browser plugin to highlight and bookmark current sites, or you can manually add bookmarks from your “Library” page using the URL. This latter route calls a screen on which you can input your own tags or use recommended ones (utilizing stats from the site’s growing community of bookmarkers), write a short description (already provided for many sites), and choose whether to allow other users to see the bookmark in your library (public or private, with no advanced settings in between).
Delicious is set up similarly, though it has a few features not found on Diigo and a much larger community of users from which to draw information and to connect with new users. Setup was, again, very easy, though it is noteworthy that the only signup alternative is through Yahoo accounts (I chose to dreg up an old account I started years ago rather than start a new one), and clearly I would have preferred to pass through with Google, a menu I still use and enjoy. There are also a number of browser add-ons, with browser-specific tools for Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer (there is an option to add a simple Bookmark via delicious button for any browser not currently supported), and it seems these bookmarking tools are actually quite different from those that Diigo offers (searching by tag, for example, though Diigo may have the upper hand with its ability to highlight and add sticky notes to sites). Adding new tags to delicious functions similarly, though there is the added benefit of tag input auto-completion, using both tags from your own library and recommended tags. Where delicious really stands head-and-shoulders above competitors, however, is in social networking (hence the stated purpose of these sites). Through my list of bookmarked sites, I can clearly see how many other users have found the same sites, and finding who these people are and how they have tagged sites is as easy as clicking on the number just to the right of the site in question. I found this feature very useful and exciting, because it not only connects me to other people reading and viewing the same sites, but it is also ordered by date bookmarked: I was able to see that another user had bookmarked The Millions on the same day I had. There is also a feature that aggregates the sites bookmarked by members of your network (through friending and favorite relationships), organized for viewing content you might also enjoy.
At the end of the day, it is unlikely that I will begin using a social bookmarking application, if only because I prefer to keep my favorites sites attached to my own computer (Google has changed this![2]), though I likely will go with delicious if that ever changes. Diigo functions well as a simple bookmarking application, but it does not really function socially and currently lags behind the popularity and wide community of delicious. For what it’s worth.
[1] "Exclusive: Screen Shots and Feature Overview of Delicious 2.0 Preview." TechCrunch. Web. 31 May 2010
[2] Google created a bookmark sync that allows one to access bookmarks across computers via Chrome and GoogleDocs. See: http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009/08/sync-google-chrome-bookmarks.html
No comments:
Post a Comment