#13 Tagging, folksomonies & social bookmarking in Del.icio.us

Of all the new technologies covered so far in the 23 Things, Del.icio.us has proved to be the most daunting so far. I’ve tooled around with it before, became a bit overwhelmed and never went back. But, in the object of learning, I am making my second foray into the social bookmarking/networking phenomenon known as Del.icio.us.

I’ve listened to the tutorial, and tried, unsuccessfully, to access the Us.ef.ul: A beginners guide to Del.icio.us and Several Habits of wildly successful Del.icio.us users. I explored the PLCMCL2 account, and even created my own account. Sounds easy enough. However, I am still a bit daunted by the massive amount of information; I don’t even know where to begin.

Here is why I want to like Del.icio.us:

I.) It makes bookmarking much more useful. I have a ton of bookmarks saved under favorites in my Safari browser. I’d even venture to say that I have never looked at 99 percent of them twice. With Del.icio.us I can group and tag whatever piques my interest or looks promising to keep for future reference/research.

2.) By tagging bookmarks, saved information is categorized, making it easy to find what you’re looking for!

3.) It allows you to look at what other people have saved under a particular tag. This is especially useful because this can lead to information you might not have found on your own or had the time to explore.

4.) It’s about organizing, and I love to have everything organized.

5.) It is so easy to bookmark – and access bookmarks – all from my browser.

6.) The site uses “free-form” tagging, so I can create my own systematic categorization.

So, why am I still leery of Del.icio.us after learning all of this? First, I think that I will need to spend extra time with the site, and focus on a couple of search terms rather than randomly searching everything to see if something grabs me. It’s too overwhelming. I also was only able to see Twitter comments on bookmarks. I am not writing off Del.icio.us yet, but I definitely have some exploring and experimenting to do with this site.