Website Review - Del.icio.us

One of the first social bookmarking websites, del.icio.us is still one of the easiest to use. You never have to fear losing your bookmarks again. Acquired by Yahoo! in December of 2005 (Wikipedia), del.icio.us focuses on the public storage of bookmarks. When you save bookmarks in your del.icio.us account (you don't have to register with del.icio.us, but it is recommended), they are made public. However, if you import your bookmark collection from your favorite web browser, your links will be automatically saved as private.

For new users who aren't familiar with social bookmarking sites such as del.icio.us, and don't use a web browser such as Fire Fox, which has a popular del.icio.us extension that allows for easy bookmarking to your del.icio.us account, importing their normal bookmark collection is a great start. However, for those wanting to start over with their bookmark collection, or have several new sites that they would like to include in their del.icio.us account that weren't in their bookmark collections already, Fire Fox provides an easy way to work with your del.icio.us account. By downloading the del.icio.us extension, you will automatically be signed into your del.icio.us account every time you open Fire Fox. Once that is set up, when you come across a website you would like to add to your del.icio.us account, all you have to do is right click. There will be an option to "bookmark page to del.icio.us" option right underneath the traditional "bookmark page" option on the menu.

One of the best features of del.icio.us is its tag system. Once you choose to add a website to your del.icio.us account, you have to provide a keyword tag for the website. By carefully choosing your tag for websites, you can group your bookmarks in meaningful ways with little to no effort. Since the introduction of del.icio.us towards the end of 2003, this tagging system have shown up everywhere from MySpace.com, livejournal.com, and even the new incarnation of netscape.com. It has become one of the cornerstones of Web 2.0 based on its simplicity and its ease of use.

While tagging is well and good, bloggers wishing to utilize del.icio.us as a blog roll for their website have many options. According to the Wikipedia article on del.icio.us, "many people use the del.icio.us linkrolls, tagrolls and network badges to display their links and information on their weblogs. Others use the RSS feeds and 'daily blog posting' feature to do this." These are powerful options not found on other blog rolling services such as blogrolling.com. Using the features on del.icio.us, you are able to bring your blog readers the most up to date websites for their reading pleasure.

Whether you are a blogger or not, del.icio.us is a useful Web 2.0 service that have something for everyone. In addition to everything mentioned above, the main site of del.icio.us automatically presents the top bookmarked websites every day. Essentially you can use del.icio.us to find websites that might have taken years otherwise. You can also search for the most popular tagged sites with the same tags you are using. In that way, you can add to your favorite websites very easily. It can be addictive and you can spend too much time trying to locate the best, newest, and funniest websites.