I've been considering what my next blog topic would be, and have it narrowed down to 2 that, at first glance, seem related: Social Bookmarking and Social Networking. As I explored these applications, I find they are very different, but both interesting.
I'm one of the few people in my world without a on-line social network, unless countless emails, class management systems, and these blogs count. But I don't have a facebook or Myspace page, and know almost nothing about them- I really should learn, just to keep up with my students and my sons.
I also learned of social bookmarking in one of our readings, which seems related (well, it's social and on the web, right?) but very, very different. As I think of how I use the web, I think that a social bookmarking working knowledge could be very helpful. I am starting to collect files of URLs, interesting resources that I may want to return to. I collect folders of pdf articles, too, but they are getting harder to organize and find when I need them. Social bookmarking seems like a good way to keep track of resources, learn of new ones I'd like, and share them without forwarding them in an email all the time. So I'll start investigating social bookmarks in this blog.
I'll start by looking at wikipedia for a definition,so I can figure out where to start. Mehkta's wiki blog must be rubbing off... I start with wikipedia often now!
It says :
"In a social bookmarking system, users save links to web pages that they want to remember and/or share. These bookmarks are usually public, and can be saved privately, shared only with specified people or groups, shared only inside certain networks, or another combination of public and private domains. The allowed people can usually view these bookmarks chronologically, by category or tags, or via a search engine."
This sounds pretty useful for me, and since I need to blog about it, I'll probably learn how to start a bookmarking page of my own, since I learn best by doing, and my blogmates can help me through the process.
If I master this concept, I may move one on to social networking before the end of the semester... fat chance!
4 comments:
Well, Ellen, I have a question for you. Is the function of social book marking achieved through a specific software such as various internet explorers, or through some on-line service such as RSS? Anyway, it is a interesting topic and if you want to establish a social network, go for Facebook. It is much better than Myspace.
Ellen, I see you have learned quite a bit, :-). - yin
Ellen, I've been using "delicious" social bookmarking since few months ago. I found it very useful. Especially if you're most likely bookmark a website from different computer. Beside that, I found a lot of useful website from delicious.com. You just type the keywords in the search bar, and then it will shows list of websites that have been tagged by people with the keywords you typed. Sometimes I just wander around 'delicious' to find popular websites (most tagged by people), and lots of them are interesting and relevant to our field/ interest. So, I hope you will enjoy social bookmarking! (I forgot, you can be in my network, and we can share our bookmarks) :D
Social book marking is another good way to reduce the amount poor content you must go through yourself. This form of book marking is utilizing a form of user rating; people won't bookmark something that isn't useful. In a sense it's the best of the web presented to you without having to find it yourself.
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