Bookmarking with del.icio.us: Now I’m a believer.
I’m almost embarrassed to admit it, but I just registered at del.icio.us, the socially/taggy bookmarking site. Why it took so long, I don’t know. Years ago I heard about it but wrote it off as some fad. Why would I want all my bookmarks online anyway?
Since then I’ve switched operating systems (which to my mind happened in the distant past!) and switched browsers and gotten my first modern laptop. I’ve also begun to realize what information overload means, but still don’t want to lose recollection of great sites that might have taken a bit of serendipity to notice in all the noise.
I had already given up using the built in browser bookmark folders. (I do use the bookmarks *toolbar* for more frequent destinations.) I’ve got no idea how to categorize something as chaotic as my web surfing in the first place, and any method I pick just gets so messy. The static nature means that things stay in place long past relevancy, and I’m bad at knowing when that time has come. Now that I’m using both a laptop and a desktop they would never be on the right machine anyway. Not to mention the quandary that came about when I started this blog: “Do I have anything worthwhile to say about this link, or must I keep it to myself?”
Del.icio.us seems to tackle all those problems. When I bookmark a link, I’m also sharing it. By nature of their centralization, I can access them from any machine I’m on. (As a friend pointed out, “the cloud” is a great place for bookmarks since you need web access to use them anyway.) Like a blog, there is a timeline element so that recent bookmarks are up top while older ones can fade away. To top it off, the semi-habitual yet often-random nature of web safari trophies is an excellent application for tagging.
I hope to eventually make this blog format less disgusting. When I find the time to take the ugly out, integrate with the rest of the site and organize to suit my personality — someday, someday — I hope to include this new discovery into the mix. Until then, feel free to follow my bookmarks as I settle in to a new groove.