mmmm…del.icio.us

bookmarking. tagging. sharing

As far as explaining the bookmarking application del.icio.us, that’s about the gist of it.  You can use del.icio.us to bookmark websites/pages in order to access them from any computer; you can add tags and descriptions that help you find what you tagged later on; and you can allow others to find sites you’ve bookmarked according to your tags.

Social Networking + Website Bookmarking = del.icio.us

The tags you use will be listed, along with the number of pages you have tagged with that term/phrase. This can also be displayed as a tag cloud. Very Cool!

To me, the real beauty of del.icio.us is the ability to use tags to share new resources in an automated fashion.  In essence, you can create an RSS feed for any tag you create (or any tag someone else has created).  These can be added to your feedreader app (you read Carrie’s post about bloglines, didn’t you?) or embedded on a webpage using an RSS aggregator widget like Grazr (remember Carissa’s post?).  This allows you to keep yourself informed about new sites related to a particular topic. (I get an RSS feed for the tag “innovation”, for instance.)  It also allows you to share the sites you find; you can display your bookmarks for certain tags (or for all your tags)  on a webpage that can be shared with a class, colleagues, or family members.

We would actually like you to start using del.icio.us to help us out with our blog.  As we’re interested in writing about technologies that you want to know about, we’ve decided to use del.icio.us to keep track of blog post suggestions. Here’s what you do:

1. search the web for technologies/applications/tools that you want us to write about
2. bookmark it in del.icio.us
3. tag it with ‘libtechtalk’

We’ve set the LibraryTechTalk blog’s feedreader in the upper-left corner to track the ‘libtechtalk’ tag so we can see your suggestions.  Give it a try!

It’s impossible for me to explain all the things you can do with your bookmarks and all the ways you can do it, so check out some of these resources for more info and ideas:

• commoncraft overview of del.icio.us and the social networking concept
• del.icio.us’ help section
• TeacherTube’s del.icio.us tutorial will give you a comprehensive overview of del.icio.us.  And by comprehensive, I mean 31+ minutes.
• Swiss Army Librarian shows you how to use del.icio.us to create subject guides

Once you’re on del.icio.us, be sure to add me (mulcahey99) to your del.icio.us network (use the “People” tab at the top of the site).