Latest Addiction
I know I’m way behind the times on this, but I finally set up a del.icio.us profile. I’ve known about del.icio.us for awhile now, but I’ve resisted. I thought it was going to be one of those “social networking” sites like MySpace, which I’ve been sucked into but hate. Instead, it’s more like LibraryThing, another one of those “social networking” (social cataloguing?) sites, which I’ve been sucked into and love.
I was reading an article in The Atlantic Monthly this morning by James Fallows, their technology correspondent. All it took was the dumbed-down explanation of what del.icio.us actually is to persuade me to immediately set up a profile. This alarms me. I used to be sort of a tech-head—not so much in the sense of wanting to build my own computer, but definitely in the sense of wanting to stay on top of the newest gadgets and toys. And now I need the Preschooler’s Primer—in the fucking Atlantic, no less—to even go to the website? Maybe growing older isn’t going to be so much fun after all. Not if I’m going to be a Luddite by the time I’m 30.
Basically, del.icio.us is like your Bookmarks folder, only better. It’s accessible anywhere you have internet access, and you can tag, or categorize, every website you add. This is ultimately far more functional than your bookmarks folder, since it’s searchable on your own terms. For example, I started using it at work today. I frequently come across websites, only to find 10 minutes later that, oh shit, I really need to cite it—and where was it again? So I just set up a “work” tag and started tagging sites that I thought I’d need later. Voila!
My del.icio.us, which I’m sure will grow exponentially over the next few weeks. There’s also a link in my right sidebar.
You really want to know what James Fallows has to say? See below currents.
current book: Taking a break from The Crystal Frontier to catch up on The New Yorker and Atlantic Monthly, both of which I just got Saturday at the post office, since our mail simply stopped coming to our door.
current music: The Specials’ “Ghost Town”
current socks: Smartwools in dark red with alternating stripes of snowflakes and polka dots. Very warm. Very comfy.
Here’s how it works: At del.icio.us and similar sites, virtually all of them free, each user creates an account, with user name and password. Most browsers can be configured to log you on automatically whenever you connect to the Internet—and to add a small button or icon to your browser’s task bar. Suppose you are thinking about a vacation and come across a blog entry about the best hotels in Venice. You click the button labeled “post to del.icio.us” for that site, or for another like it, “Mark in Ma.gnolia” (s.igh), and a screen comes up asking how you’d like to categorize, or tag, the page you’ve just seen. You type in as many terms or phrases as you think apply to the site—Italy, vacation, Italian vacation, must-read—plus any extra reminder or description you’d like to save. You click again, and del.icio.us stores the site’s address along with its tags. (Ma.gnolia and some others store a snapshot of the site’s contents, which is useful in case the saved Web address later goes bad.) The next site that catches your eye might have a set of statistics, or a recipe. You save those too, with appropriate tags.
Then from any computer, anywhere, you can log back on to del.icio.us (or a similar site). It will show you a list of all the tags you’ve created. You click on one of them—Venice, anniversary presents—and it will bring up a list of all the matching sites. It’s as if you were doing a normal Web search, but with the categories you defined yourself.
Posted 16 January 2007
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This is so helpful. I’ve been eyeing my del.icio.us for awhile, but this makes it a little easier for my already ludite mind to understand.