Delicious

Keeping track of everything you find on the Internet is a potentially tedious task. Especially since I started using Twitter I encounter loads of links that are interesting and useful to read, and that could really be helpful in future tasks. But how on earth to keep track of all that in a way that makes this information truly accessible at the moment I need it or have time to really read and digest it?

I found that Delicious is a good tool to tackle this task. It is in essence bookmarking: once you’ve signed up you can install a Delicious button in your browser menu with which you can choose to bookmark a site that you are viewing. You can add a short description, or notes, so you will more easily remember what the site was about and why you wanted to bookmark it in the first place.

Bookmarking in Delicious

You can also add tags to the bookmark. Sometimes there are suggested tags based on how others tagged the site or based on your own previous bookmarks. Tags can be used to search your bookmarks, but also to organise them. For this you can create tag bundles; a selection of tags that belong to a certain overarching topic.

Bookmarks are also shown by date, so if you remember when you bookmarked something but not what tags you might’ve used you can still locate the bookmark easily.

Since the bookmarks are stored online, you can access them from any computer, even without your login name and password at hand. You need to login only if you want to save a new bookmark.

So far, this may seem nothing special yet. However, there is another side to Delicious. It is a social bookmarking system. Which means that you can also search other persons’ bookmarks via their tags or their names. That gives a whole new dimension to web-searches, because you can check out what others have found useful enough to bookmark on a certain topic and start your search from there. In a way, you can use those others as a filter that helps you find only the most relevant links.

On the Delicious homepage you can see the latest bookmarks, you can search using tags that are of interest to you or you check who else bookmarked one of your bookmarks and view their collection. You can see how many people bookmarked a link in the little blue “box” at the right hand side of your bookmark in Delicious. If you click on this, you will get a list of people who bookmarked this link.

Since it is a social network, you can also connect to other people and subscribe to their new bookmarks. This is a good way to “follow” what people you value are finding worthwhile, but it is also a good way to share links you found useful with others. It can save a lot of time and annoyance to suggest others to look up your tags instead of e-mailing interesting links around and then realising you forgot to include a new find, or an addressee.

Results of search for tag web2boekje, highlighted search, tag and name of user who saved the bookmark

It opens up also other possibilities, as shown by the savvy authors of the Dutch book En nu online (And now online, see also En nu online on Facebook or En nu online on Twitter). Joitske Hulsebosch and Sibrenne Wagenaar (NL only) wrote a book on how to use social media for professionals, organisations and facilitators. Naturally, the book contains a wealth of links. All these links as well as many other links that provided background information are collected in Delicious with the tag web2boekje. This provides an extra for the readers of the book: all materials are collected in a practical way online and are accessible from anywhere, just by visiting Delicious and searching for the tag. This tag is useful also for non-Dutch readers interested in this topic, as most of the links are in English.

I use Delicious for collecting websites and articles/blogposts on a variety of issues, including funding opportunities for non-profits, fundraising tips & tools, participation and use of social media for non-profits. My aim is to develop a good resource for NGOs; a useful starting point to find relevant practical and inspirational information.

It is a work in progress, not just because through Twitter I find potentially interesting sites almost every day. But also because you need to check your tags and tag bundles regularly to see if they are still consistent and logical, and well-organised. I am not sure this is completely avoidable, but it might have been practical to start out with a clearer plan of what to collect and how to tag it. I still need to work that out a bit, but my tip to you is to consider these questions in the beginning, to decrease your workload on it later on! The good thing is that you can check out a few people’s bookmarks and tags first and reflect on what you like and do not like about them.

If you are interested to see what I have found and bookmarked to date, check out the follow me on Delicious button on the right or search for Suzanne Bakker on Delicious.

And of course, if you would like to read this post more carefully at another time, feel free to bookmark it in Delicious using the button below this post.