del.icio.us introductions?

Using del.icio.us bookmarks as a way for people to introduce themselves is an interesting idea. Pros are:

• it's simple
• it's fun and not-too-serious
• it's a painless way of introducing Web 2.0 and tagging
• people don't have to agonize over what to say in response to the question, "Tell me a little about yourself."
• the lighter side of people's personalities comes out (hobbies) and many people prefer talking about those things than work or career

The one negative I've come up with is that human beings love stories, and there's no narrative in a set of del.icio.us bookmarks (unless the viewer constructs a hypothetical one) like there is in a statement about "who I am." Whether a story is more memorable than a quirky bookmark choice, however, is probably debatable.

So, I think my decision would be to give it a try in appropriate situations.

del.icio.us vs. ma.gnolia

One of the confusing parts about today's internet landscape is the plethora of different sites doing the same things; there isn't just one social bookmarking service, there are many. So many different platforms leads to fragmentation, to the point that it sometimes seems like a wonder that anybody can find each other on the net at all.

Which brings us to the topic of this post. ma.gnolia is a social bookmarking site like del.icio.us, but with its own unique features as well. One thing that struck me (apart from ma.gnolia's interface, which is simple but more esthetically pleasing than del.icio.us' interface) was the prominence that ma.gnolia gives to groups. Groups (or pools) are a big part of Flickr's interface, but del.icio.us doesn't highlight this aspect at all (unless I just haven't found it yet, which is possible).

Another thing that struck me was that when I created a bookmark, it automatically was given a Creative Commons license. Although I think a lot about copyright and rights management, it never occurred to me that a bookmark might be a unit of information with a license, like a book or photo. Creative Commons is an interesting alternative to standard copyright (which seems to be getting more intrusive and draconian by the hour), but I haven't yet used it for any of my online content (I've been considering it for some of my Flickr photos). In other words, it was a bit of a shock not only to have a license attached to "my" bookmark, but a CC one at that. On the other hand, none of the content in that bookmark, nor the bookmarking technology itself, is mine; the only thing that's mine is my choice of it as significant. Since ma.gnolia is a social bookmarking site, bookmarks are meant to be shared, so a share-alike CC license is an appropriate choice.

Digg vs. del.icio.us

After messing around with del.icio.us for a while (and quickly liking it very much), I set up an account on Digg. I've seen plenty of references to Digg online, but had never tried it.

I was surprised to quickly get a bad case of what could best be called culture shock! Advertising is prominent on Digg, whereas it's nonexistent on del.icio.us. As a result, the whole feel of the sites is very different. Digg's site seemed loud and busy, with Flash animation in the ads. del.icio.us is much more minimalist. Navigation on Digg seemed more difficult too.

I also found Digg's language intimidating. You "submit" a link, and the process isn't nearly as intuitive as del.icio.us makes it (of course, you don't have to install an add-on to your browser, either, which could be a plus). Then of course, there is the voting process of "digging" a link (or not). On del.icio.us, you can see how many other people have bookmarked a link, but Digg's more active language makes the process seem more competitive or game-like. That could be a draw to some people (obviously, given Digg's success, it is a big draw for lots of people) but it just turned me off.

All in all, I found Digg to be overly commercial, busy and competitive. I think I really haven't given it a fair trial, and if I came across it at another time (during a week that was less personally stressful), I might have liked it more; I certainly can be quite competitive on occasion, and playing random games on the internet can be lots of fun. I'm interested to see if anyone else tried Digg, and if they had different opinions than I did.