I love del.icio.us.
Bookmarking a website was always such a chore before I found del.icio.us.
It is probably because I use two browsers on my work (Windows) laptop and three browsers on my iMac at home. And, until recently, these browsers haven’t even tried to share bookmarks.
After finding del.icio.us, all I needed was to install some java buttons pointing to del.icio.us on each of the browsers and voila, I have a single bookmark collection.
My discovery of Flock’s integration of this function made it all the better.
Of course, the good and bad is that now, I use del.icio.us far more than I would have ever used bookmarks.
The difference between bookmarking and del.icio.us is the ability to organize via tags. It helped me dodge the need to “file” my bookmarks into folders — which I had to do because my bookmarks were too unrulely. In fact, my bookmarks were so unruly that I even hard-coded static pages to cut down on bookmarks and bookmark management.
Today, Google did away with tags.
Now, through a java button called a “marker“, I can add stuff to my Google private search engine without tagging it. One less step and, possibly, one more reason to use Google.
Betamax is a word used to describe what happens when better technology (Sony’s Betamax standard) loses out in the market to inferior technology (JVC’s VHS standard).
I use that term here not because Google’s product is inferior — it most definitely is NOT inferior (in fact, as stated above, losing one of the steps in this bookmarking process actually makes Google’s product bit better). Rather, I use the term to let del.icio.us know that I greatly respect their product…even though I suspect that I will be going with Google.
It seems ironic that as I add the Google Marker to my favorites bar in Flock, I automatically received the del.icio.us tagging window (as programmed).
Will adding the Google Marker to my favorites list (and to my favorites bar) be my last use of del.icio.us?
Who knows.
Hat tip to Paul for the lead.
Jerry–
Using this tool may save you a click, but you’re missing out on the collaborative aspects of Delicious and its tags, as well as the ability to pivot on a Delicious URL web site to see what other people have tagged it with, as well as investigating those other people’s tags. See my post on the subject from last summer at http://caselines.blogspot.com/2007/07/pivoting-in-delicious-litigation-km-and.html .
David
David:
Indeed, that is a great aspect of del.icio.us. And now that you have pointed that feature out as a research avenue, I will see if I can use it that way — but I still think that I will only use it in the “research” mode. In other words, I will add the link that I am researching to del.icio.us and then “pivot” from there. It occurs to me that “stumbleupon” could be used the same way.
Nevertheless, what I really need is a mechanic for remembering the details that permit me to reconstruct the “haven’t I seen something on this before?” thoughts that occur to me all the time. If I used del.icio.us for that, I would have to tag properly on the front-end and then remember or intuit the tags on the backend. If I failed in either respect, I might as well use Google…and my personal search engine is Google without all the noise.
Ceteainly, del.icio.us is one way to remember stuff that you have seen before. Del.icio.us, with the insight of your use, can now also be a research tool for me — perhaps a pseudo-human-turk version of Google. But, for me, and for the mere “help me remember stuff that I have seen before,” I think that I will continue to use my personal search engine.
Thanks for visiting, thanks for commenting, and thanks for the excellent tip.
I’ll look you up next time I am back east.
– Jerry