Tag Archives: Social Media

Design Spotlight: Del.icio.us 2.0

Aug 3, 2008 by Matt | Posted in Design No Comments

The popular social bookmarking site Del.icio.us redesigned over the past week. Overall they’ve kept a similar look, and haven’t lost any of the simplicity. It’s more polished looking, and probably more usable. Oh, and they’ve dropped the dots from the URL, becoming Delicious.com.

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Yahoo Buzz: Not a “Digg Killer”

Mar 20, 2008 by Matt | Posted in Social Media One Comment

Everyone seems to be talking about Yahoo Buzz these days, and about how it’s going to give Digg a run for its money.

I don’t get it.

Sure, the site is new and shiny. But they have nothing on Digg so far.

  • Users of Yahoo Buzz can only vote on stories, they cannot submit them.
  • Only select sites can have their articles featured (read: really big blogs). Yahoo says they are in beta, and are currently not accepting publisher applications.
  • I doubt Yahoo will ever let smaller sites be featured. They’ll most likely keep it weighted towards the bigger sites, with some lame excuse like “all the traffic would kill your site!”

I admit that the potential traffic from Yahoo Buzz is great. As Daily Blog Tips pointed out:

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Making Sense of Social Bookmarking Sites

Jan 18, 2008 by Matt | Posted in Social Media 3 Comments

The biggest Social Bookmarking sites are Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, and Del.icio.us. I use the term a little loosely, as Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon are generally referred to as “Social Media” sites, as they’re less about storing things for later reference, but about finding things. If I’m collectively talking about the four sites, though, I use the term Social Bookmarking. After all, you still are bookmarking with the sites, even if that’s not the main focus.

The Social Bookmarking sites are all a bit different, and they all have their own uses.

Digg/Reddit: Digg and Reddit are mainly for finding “news” (which is a broad term on the two sites). Using the sites, you can find things that a large group of people think are interesting/useful/relevant/etc. Looking for the hottest tech news? Head to Digg.

StumbleUpon: SU is channel-surfing for the web. Just click the “Stumble” button on the SU toolbar and you’re taken to a semi-random page in your selection of interests. Do you like the page? Click the “Thumbs-Up” button. Your vote affects how often the page will come-up when other people click their Stumble buttons. It’s fun, and addictive.

Del.icio.us: Wouldn’t it be great if you could access your bookmarks from any computer? Wouldn’t it be useful to see what other users (people you know, people with similar interests) have bookmarked? That’s the idea behind Del.icio.us. You import your bookmarks from your browser (most major ones supported), and then you start bookmarking things with the Del.icio.us instead of your “normal” bookmarks system. If you don’t get why you’d want this, watch this short video.

All of the aforementioned sites are useful, and you should check them out if you haven’t already. In the blogging world, they are useful for finding things to write about, and for promoting things you wrote. Don’t blog in a vacuum.