It’s true. I’ve become one of those people that has a del.icio.us account and incorporates it into their blog. I’m one them, now.
I have to say that, apart from any gripes to be had with the complexity of the URL (“del, icio, us” is how I remember it), del.icio.us is one the most useful pieces of web tech that I’ve ever used, which is most likely why it’s so famous and stuff.
If you’re unaccquainted with the site, allow me to give a brief rundown. del.icio.us is one of several “social bookmarking” sites, or what I call “aggregate” sites. Aggregate sites cull their content entirely from their users, making them 100% dependent on community. If an aggregate site does not have a community of users publishing, then it has no content, and therefore no readership. In order to quickly overcome this hurdle, Netscape.com — old site, new aggregate — decided to pay top bookmarkers from other sites to begin bookmarking for Netscape instead. Other sites, such as Digg, Reddit, and my buddy del.icio.us, have relied on word-of-mouth to build wide-reaching communities of “social bookmarkers.”
Though the aesthetic and implementation may differ, the basic idea of social bookmarking is always the same. Users submit websites, articles, or basically any URL of interest to them, often associating it with a number of categories, or “tags.” The more users that link to a specific URL, the more likely it is that that specific URL will appear on the aggregate’s main site. In this way, featured news is determined by popularity. Sites with hierarchical membership (read: older, or well-respected users are better than newer ones) often rely more heavily on high-level users (like Netscape’s “Navigators”) to determine what stories will appear on the front page.
The term “social bookmarking” suggests that aggregate sites are a community-based evolution of the browser-based bookmarks, which is accurate. Now, instead of adding an interesting link I found to a pile of bookmarks that I’ll never look at again, I tag it and throw it on my del.icio.us site. Tagging allows me to organize the list of links by a number of topics (games, gamedev, gamedesign, play, bunnies, etc.). Because it’s online and public, my bookmarks can easily be seen by my friends and family (and anyone else who happens upon my site). At the same time, it preserves a list of topics of interest to me, allowing me to go back to them over time. Kevin Slavin refers to his del.icio.us account as “his virtual brain,” and at this point I’m inclined to agree.
If you’re a fan of aggregating (or you think newspaper clippings are cool but outdated), you should look into setting up a del.icio.us account. It’s free, and is surprisingly fun. And be sure to check out my del.icio.us links in the left sidebar and on my del.icio.us site.
There. That is the last I will mention of it.