Posts Tagged ‘delicious’

Be Careful What You Save

09.02.18

Be careful what you save in Delicious.

To be a little more specific – be careful how you save things in Delicious.

*Social* bookmarking

Delicious is a social bookmarking tool. This  means that, while Delicious is great for replacing your bloated “favourites” list in your browser, there are also sharing features built-in. This is helpful for teams working in the online space – you can easily tag something as “for: [someone]” to send it to them – but it also brings with it a few other considerations.

Network with care

One of my favourite features in Delicious is the ability to form a network of contacts (here’s mine). When you add people to your network, you can easily subscribe to all of their bookmarks in an RSS reader (I’ve mentioned this before when looking at 6 ways to make your life easier with Delicious). Pretty neat, huh?

Delicious network

Unless you don’t want other people to see the things you’re bookmarking, that is. Maybe you’re working on a new business project, or trying to do something to surprise someone, or *gasp* bookmarking job postings.

Now, Delicious has a “Do not share” feature that prevents others from seeing the sites you save. Problem solved, you would think. But what if you forget to check the “do not share” box when you save the article? No problem, surely – you can just go back and click it later, right?

Wrong.

Yes, you can go back and un-share your bookmarks. Yes, that will remove that bookmark from the public list of sites you’ve saved.

No, it won’t remove them from RSS feeds.

An example

I recently had a conversation with someone about using Delicious to save research they were conducting. We discussed the importance of making their bookmarks private.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I glanced at my RSS reader a while later and saw numerous bookmarks from that person on the topic we’d just discussed. When I searched the person’s saved bookmarks on Delicious itself they were gone – they’d obviously corrected the error – but they’re now stored forever in my Google Reader results.

Once again, a useful reminder – be careful what you do online.

Posted in: best practices, privacy, social media, tools

Tags: , ,

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Which Sites Are You Deeply Engaged With?

08.10.30

Last month, Yahoo and ComScore released the results of a joint research project which showed that our of an average of 85 websites that people visit each month, people are really only “deeply engaged” with about 1.5 of them.

Stopwatch The article got me thinking about the sites that I am really engaged with; the sites which I visit almost every day and on which I spend most of my online time.

I’m a little more active online than the ‘average’ person – I can think of five sites with which I consider myself “deeply engaged”:

  1. Google – without doubt, this is one of the sites I use the most. If Google didn’t function properly one day… well, I’d use another search engine… but aside from that I’d be quite put out.
  2. Twitter – whether I’m on the site itself (which I do with increasing frequency as I continue to have problems with Twitter’s API limits) or accessing the service through a desktop or mobile application, I probably use Twitter more frequently than any web service other than Google.
  3. Google Reader – usually the first website I check each day – I do still scan mainstream newspaper sites, but I pull most of my reading material into Google Reader. I spend more time actively using this site than any other.
  4. Facebook – I’m getting back into Facebook as time goes on and I increasingly look to use social media tools to keep in touch with my non-techy friends. Most of them use Facebook so I can still be a geek while staying in touch with them.
  5. Delicious – as with Twitter, I often interact with delicious in irregular ways (usually via the Firefox extension). However, I use it multiple times every day, whether I’m adding to my 1,000+ bookmarks or pulling resources out of them. I use it to track media coverage, to compile my reading lists, to save resources… the list goes on.

Does this resonate with you? Which sites are you really, deeply, engaged with?

(Image credit: Daino_16)

Posted in: facebook, Google, social media, tools, Twitter

Tags: , , , , , ,

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Practical 101s: Social Bookmarking With Delicious

08.10.20

As people move more and more of their lives online, it gets harder and harder to stay organized.

Where was that great article you read the other day? What was that great blog you read? What was the name of that cool tool you found?

Of course, you could save everything in your browser’s favourites but, let’s face it, that would get unmanageable very quickly.

That’s where Delicious comes in.

Delicious?

Delicious describes itself as, “a social bookmarking service that allows you to tag, save, manage and share Web pages all in one place.”

Social bookmarking?

If you need a quick primer on social bookmarking, here’s a great (and quick) video that describes social bookmarking in… well… plain english.

Why delicious?

Delicious lets you:

  1. Save an unlimited number of sites
  2. Categorize the sites you save, using as many categories for each site as you want (so I might save this site under ‘public_relations,” “communications,” “marketing,” “social_media,” “blog” and so on)
  3. Integrate Delicious buttons into your web browser to make using Delicious easy
  4. Subscribe to other users’ bookmarks (don’t worry, you can save bookmarks privately if you want to) to add to your reading list
  5. Create your own customized search engine containing pages you find useful

Getting started

Getting started on Delicious is very, very easy. There are three steps to signing-up and saving your bookmarks:

  1. Sign up for a Delicious account
  2. (Optional) Install the browser extension
  3. Save away!

Step 1: Sign up for a Delicious account

To get started on Delicious, head over to https://secure.delicious.com/register. There are two parts to the registration:

  1. Complete your details
  2. Import your existing bookmarks

Personally, I always skip the second step (which you can do via a link at the top-right of the screen).

Step 2: (Optional) Install the browser extension

You don’t have to do this, but it really is the easiest and most convenient way to use Delicious.

Head over to the Delicious Tools page. You have three options, depending on your browser:

  1. Firefox Bookmarks add-on
  2. Internet Explorer buttons
  3. Bookmarklet buttons for any browser

The first two are far more powerful than the third, so if you’re a Firefox or IE user I recommend those. Make your choice and follow the on-screen instructions.

Step 3: Save away!

Not exactly difficult so far, was it? It doesn’t get any harder, either.

To begin saving bookmarks, find a page you want to save then:

  • If you installed the Firefox or IE add-ons or the bookmarklet buttons, click the “Tag” or “Bookmark on Delicious” button in your browser toolbar
    • Enter your notes for the page in the pop-up box
      • Tip: If you highlight text on the page before clicking “Tag” it will automatically put this text in the ‘Notes’ box for you
    • Enter as many tags as you like
      • Consistency is good with this so you can file similar sites together (I have 175 tags for over 1,100 bookmarks)
      • Tip: Tag sites with as many aspects of the content as possible. Remember, a year down the road you may not remember you ever went to that site. Filing it in as many common-sense places as possible increases the likelihood you’ll be able to find that content again when you need it
    • If you want to keep this bookmark private, check the “do not share” box
    • Click ‘Save’
  • If you chose not to install the add-ons or buttons, copy the address of the page and go to http://delicious.com/save
    • Paste the address in the box, click “Next” and complete the “Notes” and “Tags” fields
      • Tip: Save your bookmark using a new browser window or tab. You will likely want to refer back to the page you’re saving when you complete the “Notes” field
    • Click ‘Save’

Conclusion

Delicious really is an easy site to use, and it can be extremely useful. As I mentioned earlier, I currently have just over 1,100 bookmarks saved, and I refer back to them almost every day.

For some more advanced tips and techniques for Delicious, check out an earlier post of mine on six ways to make life easier with Delicious.

This post is part of an ongoing series of ‘practical 101′ posts on public relations and social media topics. For other, similar advice, check out the ‘practical 101′ series. If you’d like to suggest a topic for the series, let me know in the comments!

Posted in: 101, how to, social bookmarking, social media

Tags: , , , ,

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Different Types of Engagement

08.09.25

I’ve noticed what I think is a trend in the ways people engage with me on this site:

  • If I write a short, focused post, or one with a clear call to action, it gets comments.
  • If I write a controversial post, it gets trackbacks.
  • If I write a long list or thorough analysis piece, it gets bookmarked or stumbled.
  • Very few of my posts get dugg.

My guess:

  • Short posts are easy to get through in a minute or two, so commenting is relatively low-effort. Posts with a call to action, well, call you to action. Same result.
  • Controversial posts provoke thought, after which people write their own posts.
  • Long lists and analyses aren’t as easy to digest, so people save them and return to them later.

The question is, what makes a post digg-able?

Thoughts?

Posted in: blogging

Tags: , ,

7Comments

Google Reader and Delicious: Personalized Search Engines

08.08.26

Everyone I know uses Google to search for things online. I do the same thing on most topics. When it comes to communications, marketing or social media, though, I have two other resources I search before going to Google’s main search.

Google Reader

Google ReaderI have two main communications/marketing/social media folders in my Google Reader:

  • A-list
  • Other

My A-list consists of 40-50 sites that I consider must-reads. I check them daily, and try to keep the unread posts to a minimum.

My other folder includes a couple of hundred other sites that I value and respect, but don’t have time to check daily. There are thousands of unread posts in there, although I do dip in occasionally and read a few. This folder is my search resource.

If I want to search on one of the three topics I mentioned earlier, my first action is to go to Google Reader and plug the search in there. This searches all of my subscriptions, providing me with a highly personalized search engine. Nine times out of ten, I’ll find multiple articles on what I’m looking for on the first page or two of these results.

Del.icio.us

del.icio.usIf my Google Reader search fails me, my second stop is del.icio.us. I have three search options there:

  • Search my bookmarks
  • Search my network’s bookmarks
  • Search everyone’s bookmarks

I work my way through these three searches, starting with my own bookmarks and working my way out to everyone’s. With these searches, I try to think of the kinds of tags I would use for the kind of results I’m looking for, and search for them.

With these two resources at hand, I find I rarely have to resort to a regular Google search.

What resources do you use for your searches?

Posted in: search

Tags: ,

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