Social Bookmarking

This post is about social bookmarking, which is typically done via a Web site such as www.delicious.com.


Social bookmarking is a democratic taxonomy that allows the community to peer review the content of the Web. As with all democracies and systems built from the ground up, the system only works when participants cooperate and adhere to an understood set of rules.

For example, the term folksonomy is often used to refer to the tagging that powers social bookmarking/social networking Web sites. As the name suggests, average "folks" are responsible for creating the tags. If done correctly where a spirit of cooperation prevails, content is tagged properly and users can rely on tags to easily navigate and search through online content (photos (as in FlickR or SmugMug), Web sites (as in delicious) or personal content (as in Facebook or MySpace) etc.). If meaningful tags are consistently applied to content, key words can be used to search for relevant content (e.g. I may search FlickR for the "NewJersey" tag to find New Jersey-related photos).

If the content is tagged improperly or certain posters do not follow a set of agreed-upon rules, a certain sense of chaos ensues, where key words or tag classifications often steer users to content that has nothing to do with the search parameters. For example, unscrupulous photo posters, who hope to drive traffic to their Web site or advertise a product, may recognize that New Jersey is a densely populated state and therefore a much-used tag among FlickR users. These unscrupulous posters, who have no direct interest in New Jersey, may violate the agreed-upon rules by improperly applying the "New Jersey" tag to a photo or two of the product they hope to adversite. If this subterfuge and misapplication of tags is done on a large scale, the tagging system and metadata of a social bookmark/networking site lose effectiveness.


My Social Bookmarks

I have created an account on the delicious social bookmarking Web site; here are the specifics for my account:




For my delicious account, I have included a number of Web sites that directly relate either to my day-to-day job responsibilities or my MS-PTC coursework. I have included links to sites about usability, FrameScript, style manuals and technical writing blogs. I check in with these sites several times a week to track technical communication/usability trends and stay informed about cutting edge technical communication concepts. I included a bookmark to an excellent XML tutorial that I hope to complete this year.


Advantages of Social Bookmarking

Much like Wikis, social bookmarking sites are especially helpful for professionals who work in collaborative environments. For example, if I'm part of a particular project development team at work and I'm responsible for developing training or editing technical material, I may develop a list of bookmarks to supplement my training or editing lessons. I can point other team members to my social bookmarking account to help them hone their editing skills and hopefully reduce my workload.

On the other hand, tech-savvy SMEs can develop social bookmarking sites that provide links to technical concepts that may help me write documentation. For example, instead of having an SME take valuable time to explain Python or Pearl programming concepts to me, the SME could point me to a social bookmarking site that contains links to useful Web sites about Pearl or Python. This would reduce the burden on the SMEs.