Delicious is a social bookmarking system, that is notable, not only for its unusual web address http://del.icio.us, but for its unusual approach to content building that is becoming increasingly popular. In order to ease the burden of producing consistent stream of fresh content, publishers are turning to users to build, categorize and qualify content. While this is said to be part of the web 2.0 phenomenon, publishers realize the value of collaboration.
Social bookmarking allows users to qualify content. With Delicious, each "bookmark" of a specific webpage is seen as a vote of confidence. The more people who bookmark a specific webpage, the more credible the webpage is viewed.
In addition to bookmarking a webpage, users "tag" the webpage. The tags are simply single word keywords that relate to the contents of the webpage. The tagging associates keywords with the webpage's content, making it easier to categorize and classify the content of the webpage. If everyone bookmarking a page uses similar keyword tags, the webpage will be classified as a credible resource in a specific category.
As a webpage receives more and more bookmarks from different Delicious users, the listing for the webpage becomes more prominent in the Delicious listings. Delicious users can bookmark and tag multiple pages within a website. Content can be tagged with multiple terms. As more users tag the content, it becomes easier to find similar topics.
How to Use Delicious:
1. Create a Delicious Account In order to create a Delicious account, you will need to provide a valid e-mail address, login name and password.
2. Verify an Account An e-mail will be sent to the e-mail address provided when the Delicious account was created. You will need to click the link in the e-mail in order to fully activate the Delicious account.
3. Login Login in to the Delicious account in order to begin bookmarking and tagging content.
4. Post URL Enter the URL of a webpage or website that you find to be particularly valuable or useful.
5. Describe and Tag Enter a descriptive page title and description that relates to the contents of the bookmarked webpage. In the final field enter single word keywords that relate to the webpages content, these will be the "tags".
Why Use Delicious? Delicious can be used by professionals to share industry resources that are particularly useful. Delicious users store their favorite websites or resources online and other users can easily access bookmarks. Often websurfers will use Delicious to find resources that they consider to be relevant and qualified.
Delicious also takes advantage of RSS. RSS feeds can be used to syndicate user bookmarks or to aggregate content with the same tags. Generating RSS feeds allows users to syndicate bookmarks or to aggregate content that contains related tags. Users can also syndicate bookmarks that are created by other users using RSS feeds.
Bookmarks Many users generate bookmarks that are all related as in this case of bookmarks all related to RSS: http://del.icio.us/rssfeeds or the RSS feed of the same bookmarks at: http://del.icio.us/rss/rssfeeds
Other user bookmarks don't encompass a single theme as is the case with the following: http://del.icio.us/oreck or the RSS feed of the same bookmarks at: http://del.icio.us/rss/oreck
As publishers struggle to create unique content, they are turning towards web surfers to qualify and categorize content. As a result social-bookmarking is becoming more prevalent as users weigh-in.
Permissions: Permissions and notification of use not required.
In social bookmarking a person stores lists of internet resources that they find useful. They are often on a particular network where people with similar interests can view the lists and add their own lists. Social bookmarking sites are also a way for those who work in a particular field to network and share information with each other.
There is no single way of engaging in social bookmarking. Resources are often categorized by a user defined keyword or tag. Keywords and tags are essential if you want internet search engines to pick up and rank your work or site. Most sites have a facility whereby users can search for resources through the use of a particular tag ? the resources are then ranked by the number of users who have bookmarked them. Social bookmarking sites will also search for related keywords and clustered keywords. This makes a users search for a particular resource easier ? it also gives them access to resources similar to the one they were already looking for.
Social bookmarking sites are becoming so popular that most of them are no longer restricted to the simple sharing of resources. Users have the ability to rate and comment on resources that they have found. They can also import and export resources to and from the site. Some sites give users the option to write notes on the resources and review them there are also groups and forums that enable social networking. In social networking users share other information in addition to the resources they have bookmarked ? these forums can also take on a purely social aspect where users can communicate with each other on various issues.
Social bookmarking has advantages over other ways of sharing resources as they are easier for many of the search engines to find. When people use social bookmarking sites such as technorati they often find that the traffic to their website goes up. When traffic increases then the site goes up in Google's ranking system. This means that when someone is looking for a resource in your area and it has been bookmarked in this way it is more likely to show up on a search. This means increased visitors to your site and in many cases an increase in revenue.
There are various solutions available to automate the process. However, you must be very careful not use any "black hat' methods at the very least to your websites that you want to keep around for a while. There is Tag Automator and Sean Wu's application. Both of these are using a back door. There are also scripts out there that can help you sign-up and submit in a semi-automated fashion, where you are actually coming in through the "front door". The best solution that I have found is SBS-Auto which is totally white hat and is an actual software. The developer has researched the phenomena for several years and is offering an education as well as the software.
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S. Housley has sinced written about articles on various topics from Anger Control, Computers and The Internet and RSS. Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages mar. S. Housley's top article generates over 22200 views. to your Favourites.
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