Learning Social Information Management
I've been using del.icio.us (social bookmarking site) for the last three years to bookmark and share what I find interesting on the net. Also, I use it as my primary search tool. Google/Yahoo are great for the generic stuff but for the meaningful stuff I use del.icio.us. Why? Easy, most of the bookmarks to web pages are intelligently filtered, noted, and tagged. Plus, I can find and make connections with others.
Social Bookmarking is one of the easiest tools for users to adopt. It only takes a few people to build up an incredibly rich library of links, tags, notes and intersections.
Although, the mainstream doesn't think so.
"Discovering versus teaching principles of social information management" by Jon Udell, is part of a discussion on why del.icio.us has not yet made it to the mainstream.
Jon, "In response to Josh Catone's observation that del.icio.us has failed to go mainstream, Richard Ziade offers three hypotheses:
- Nobody really needs a way to centrally store their bookmarks
- Most people don't understand what del.icio.us does
- People don't feel compelled to share del.icio.us with others
The winning explanation, I am sure, is #2. Nobody understands what del.icio.us does. I am constantly explaining the nature and value of its social information management capabilities."
Here's a how-to video on del.icio.us and social bookmarking.