folksonomy: digitalculture

For the purposes of this blog and to satisfy my own interests I registered with and perused the 16 social bookmarking sites attached to my blog (see above). I realised that a quality social bookmarking site should contain the following:

A substantial amount of users is required in order to avoid irrelevance.

Comprehensive FAQ / help pages.

A clear and understandable interface.

Good import/export possibilities (import is required to transport bookmarks from one social bookmarking site to another, and vice-versa).

A blog to inform of recent developments/changes/bug fixes etc.

If you don’t want to trawl through the endless number of social networking sites, here are my choices for the best 9 picks.

1. Delicious

Owned by Yahoo, Delicious is probably my favourite social bookmarking site and from what I have gathered, the standard by which social bookmarking sites are measured. With its clear interface and simple step-by-step instructions it is possible to log in straight away (using your Yahoo account) and start tagging in a matter of minutes if not seconds! As soon as I joined I was overwhelmed by the sense of community and rich layers of content that are available.

Yum.

2. 2. Digg

I seriously ‘digg’ this site.

Despite recent criticisms Digg remains the most popular social news site online. No doubt part of its success has resulted from how easy it is for a newcomer to browse through popular articles from a wide range of topics. The way Digg works is that users can ‘digg’ articles that they agree with and ‘bury’ they ones that they disagree with.

The only downfall is that top users can effectively ‘sink’ an article that they don’t agree with. I was not surprised to find that many users have been concerned with this function. This month the Digg founder, Kevin Rose admitted that he let Digg stagnate by its move to pull engineers from designing new features to improving revenue.

With the imminent return of several popular features from its previous version, Digg seems set to make a real comeback and possibly ‘bury’ its competitors for good.

1. 3. Reddit

What’s red and dug all over?

If you don’t already know, the updated version of Digg had caused quite a fuss, and for good reason. Naturally, this has given way for a competitor to raise up the popularity ranks. This competitor is Reddit. The news page on Digg has been saturated with links to discussions and images posted on rival Reddit instead. Many have even speculated that Reddit is actually ‘gaming’ Digg.

Reddit is a social news site that displays news based on the user’s personal preference and what the community likes. Apart from having to wait at least seven minutes before submitting the next URL, Reddit is an awesome site. The best feature of Reddit is the individual recommendations. This way if you spend a considerable amount of time voting on stories or pictures etc that you think are either 'hot' or 'cold', your personal preferences will improve the things that are shown to you.

I agree with Daniel Nations comment that "[t]he community is focused more on offbeat news and commentary on current news than just posting the latest article off the AP wire". If you get your news from a conventional source and want a little bit more info/ different perspectives then this is your site!

4. Diigo

Digg...Diigo, any connection? Surprisingly no! They're not even competitors!

Claiming to be a social annotation service, Diigo offers something unique to other social bookmarking sites. So lets just say your wandering around the web doing a bit of research and you find something that you want to bookmark. Instead of blindly bookmarking the page you can actually highlight sections of the text and bookmark it leaving the highlighted section in tact for when you return!You can also attach Sticky Notes next to your highlight, which allows you to record your comments.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I can see this site really taking up amongst university students, educators and the like. As Diigo allows educators etc to establish a private group and a hold private conversations around bookmarks it is particularly useful in a context where knowledge development, rather than management is expected.

5. StumbleUpon
Stumble? More like Stride!

StumbleUpon offers its members a matchless way to navigate around the web. If your one of those people who likes to Google themselves just to see what comes up, or is addicted to the 'lucky' Google search option, you will love this social bookmarking site. Also, if your sick of searching for items in one of the common search engines such as Google and Bing and finding irrelevant, sponsored and outdated material, you should definitely check StumbleUpon out. After joining, and entering a term in the search bar I was astonished with the standard of results. Many of the terms that I entered such as 'Digital Culture', returned results to me that I am quite convinced I wouldn't have been able to find elsewhere. The beauty of StumbleUpon is that you are able to take advantage of your fellow-users research. In addition, you are also able to contribute more tags to the item and/or give it a thumbs up.

If your looking for a better web search tool, look no further than StumbleUpon.

This video pretty much covers what I have said and looks at StumbleUpon on the iPhone:

6. Newsvine

Oh I heard it through the Newsvine...oh I'm just about to loose my mind...tagger, tagger, yeah!

I have no idea why I haven't used this site before! Quick, spread the word! Launched recently in March 2006 this site really does "bring together big and little media in a way which respects established journalism and empowers the individual". Link. The thing that I love about this site is that it allows absolutely anybody to contribute and places editorial integrity back into the hands of the community.

The site is extremely attractive and well thought out.

7. Mixx

Mixx is an extremely popular site reporting visitors in the millions. No doubt a large proportion of these visitors have been as a result of Mixx’s integrationin websites such as USA today, New York Times and CNN. The content on Mixx is just as the name suggests a mix of stories, photos and videos amongst other things contributed by community members of Mixx.

Just to ‘mixx’ it up a little bit more, this site allows the user to be in charge of the content of their page but also of the layout of their page. You can either tell the site how you like it and they will accommodate your needs or you can go that extra step and create a personalised mixture of web content (e.g. images/videos/text-based articles/free-determined Meta tags). Private groups can also be formed amongst users that wish to share additional information regarding their common interests.

8. Flickr

Unlike the other social bookmarking sites that I have discussed so far, Flickr is purely for managing images rather than links etc. Before joining up I had somehow managed to navigate my way there several times when searching for photos relating to a specific item. The best thing about Flickr is that anybody can access to photos that are made publicly available, which is most of them. One quick search in the easily identifiable search bar will return results that smash Google images out of the water.

There are two options for membership –the free account and the pro account. Both of these accounts allow members to upload images in a variety of ways to make photosets which are online photo albums. These can be browsed or viewed as a slideshow from anywhere around the world. I really enjoy being a part of a group formed by my digital culture peers. It’s interesting and refreshing to see that most contributors have very strong emotional drivers for sharing images.

9. Clipmarks

I found that Clipmarks is extremely similar to Diigo. As a personal Web scrapbook, Clipmarks allows you to “see clips of text, images or video about all sorts of topics that people find while surfing the web” as well as create your own.

The main benefit of Clipmarks is that it still has a relatively small following of users and as a result is quite an intimate experience. Sure, you won’t be able to find the breadth of sources-but is that necessarily a bad thing? I don’t think so. There are so many sites out there already that are all about finding things that you otherwise wouldn’t have, so it’s energizing to see a site that is more about sharing things as part of a community.

On your marks, get set, clip!

As you may already know I am an arts/law student currently undertaking a Digital Culture course at Newcastle University. This course has exposed me to an array of online communication technologies that I had either previously been unaware of or had never used/understood before. Considering the extent to which these technologies enabled by Web 2.0 have enhanced social interaction and content management in everyday life, I believe that it should be our imperative to seek a greater understanding and appreciation of these sites.

Users often annotate the content that they have created and used with descriptive labels known as ‘tags’. It is thought that the simplicity of the tagging process whereby users need only select or upload content to a centralized database and assign words to this material has given rise to its popularity (Tisselli 2010, p.141). These tags, although created by individuals, aggregate to produce a common vocabulary known as folksonomy. A fundamental problem that has been identified by Strohmaier (2008) is that the terms used during tagging have been found to be different from the terms that are used when searching for resources. This problem is arguably limiting the success of folksonomies.

Whilst navigating my way around various social bookmarking sites I found myself becoming increasingly interested in the reasons why people tag their own and other people’s content. As such, I will also be discussing the various motivations behind why users ‘tag’ content and whether the type and purpose of the virtual community plays a role in determining these motivations (Moore & Serva 2007, p.153).

If you have a spare moment I would love to know why you ‘tag’ items and whether you feel a sense of connection to the site that you contribute to. Also, do you contribute to multiple sites and if so, do you feel the same sense of community within each site?

I have to admit that the only reason why I started tagging was because it was a requirement for my course. However, ever since I have joined up to social bookmarking sites such as Flickr and Delicious I have felt part of that specific community and have wanted to contribute tags to help others navigate their way around the site. The sense of community that I feel with Flickr has been enhanced by my inclusion in a specific group ‘CULT3020’.

If you don't know what I'm talking about please watch the the video that I have attached below and feel free to ask me any questions! I would also strongly advise that you join up to a social bookmarking site such as Delicious, upload an image and start tagging away!

I hope that together we can challenge the ways that social bookmarking is being used in order to enhance its efficiency for all web users. Please feel free to send any criticisms my way as well!