Canadians have always been ahead of the curve, adopting social media with more enthusiasm than many others at an early stage. When MySpace was becoming big, Canadians adopted it in proportionally greater numbers than Americans and the rest of the world as a whole. When Facebook was getting noticed, Canadians were once again at the head of the line. If you spend any time on Twitter, it's hard to avoid bumping into so many Canadians.



One aspect of social media has somehow left Canadians a little left out ? social bookmarking. Interestingly, social bookmarking really is a medium unlike the others. In Twitter, multiple little overlapping groupings occur. On your home page, for instance, you will likely see posts about your professional niche, posts about things happening in your town and items related to your social circle. Facebook operates the same way, as does LinkedIn, adding the segmentation of formal groups.

Social bookmarking works on a majority rule basis. Rather than seeing on your home page the latest posts related to your own communities, you see the ones that are most popular overall. On major social bookmarking websites, that means things of interest most to Americans and to global audiences, both of which far outnumber the Canadians on those websites.

To give an idea of what it means to be outnumbered in on a social bookmarking website, consider the 2008 election? the Canadian one. The one that was hardly even noticed on the biggest social bookmarking website of them all, Digg.com. There were oodles of posts about Sarah Palin, Sarah Palin's wardrobe, the definition of being a hockey mom (ironically as part of the US electoral discourse) and of course there was plenty about Obama, and even some about Clinton and McCain. But nothing about Harper or Layton or Dion.

Canadians, so interested in social media, need their own social bookmarking website. A site where Canadian web pages can get exposure. A site where Canadian news can be posted and discussed. And there is no lack of news in Canada, a country that seems to feed off its news.

And that is why ZoomIt.ca was developed. Zoomit Canada is a social bookmarking website, much like Digg.com. The difference is that ZoomIt.ca wants to help Canadian content get more exposure on the Internet. Here are five guidelines when posting a story to ZoomIt.ca:

(1) Any site belonging to an organization that is obviously Canadian.

(2) Any story that is on a website that displays a Canadian street address.

(3) Any story that is about Canada or Canadians. A story about how Canada declares war on Antarctica is a good example of a Canadian story. A story about how the North Koreans are surreptitiously supplying ammunition to a group of renegade penguins, and happens to mention that Canada has severed diplomatic ties with Antarctica, is a good example of a NON-Canadian story.

(4) Any story on a website whose domain ends in .ca (such as www.ZoomIt.ca).

(5) Any post on a blog where the blogger has declared his Canadianness.

It's time to get social bookmarking in Canada, so get out there and ?zoom? that Canadian story, website or blog.