I use a service called del.icio.us to keep track of what I read on the web. Think of it as public bookmarking — instead of adding a favorite to my web browser, I add it to my del.icio.us account. Instead of putting it into a folder, I add as many descriptive "tags" as I want. My bookmarks are entirely public (I like transparency). Since I started using the free service around December 1st, I’ve tagged 637 items. Wow! I’m an information hog — I take in tons of info each day and I think I do a pretty good job discerning what’s important, forwarding relevant things to other people, and internalizing newfound knowledge.
Del.icio.us has been invaluable. Here’s how I use the service.
- I don’t surf the web anymore. Most all my news and information come through 280 RSS feeds in my RSS reader NetNewsWire. I refresh this reader about five times a day during downtime at school (OK, that means during boring parts of school classes, too).
- Any link I click on — or any blog post I enjoy — opens into Firefox. I try to get through my RSS reader as quickly as possible. If I spend more than 10 seconds on any one item, I open it up in Firefox to read later.
- Sometimes I’ll have as many as 20 tabs open in Firefox. Most of these pages get tagged into del.icio.us through the handy Firefox/del.icio.us integration which means I spend virtually no time tagging. I do try to select some text on the page before clicking "tag" which shows up in the "description" field for that page.
- If I leave a comment on someone else’s blog, I tag that page blogcomment. If I need to print a page but am not by a printer I tag it print_later. If I don’t have time at that moment to blog something, I tag it blog_later. If I want to share a page with a friend who’s on del.icio.us, I tag it "for:theirname".
- Anytime I think to myself, "Gee, where was that really good article I read a few weeks ago?" I’ll simply go to my delicious page, click the relevant tag — say, journalism — and due to my disciplined way of tagging everything, it’s there.
If you are interested in seeing what I’m tagging — the first derivative of my thinking — feel free to subscribe to the XML feed. If you use del.icio.us, tag items you want me to look at for:bencasnocha.
Ben, I’m also using del.icio.us quite extensively, but I’ve just learned two tricks from you: print later and blog later..
So as “payment” for those tips, here’s this one: http://co.mments.com/ a fairly new service, makes comment tracking easier than the manual tagging.
Hey Ben –
Great post. I constantly struggle to find more efficient ways to tag the information I encounter on the net. Even after learning about del.icio.us, I had trouble adapting to it. This post gives me some tangible ‘tricks’ to use that will motivate me to start collecting and organizing the info I view on the net. Love the “highlight and tag” function. Anyway, thanks for sharing…
A mere 288 items for me in about 3 months. But I agree–del.icio.us is useful in a way that traditional bookmarks aren’t. The ability to share and publish is now central to every kind of software!
i subscribed to your del. feed after coming across your blog a couple of months ago – we share some common interests, and you find some good articles that I never would have came across. i stole your idea of adding your delicious tags to my blog too. I’ll have to remember your blog_later tag idea.