Social Bookmarking Part 3: Selected Reviews of Digg, Del.icio.us, Reddit, and Smarking
Digg
Digg is a "user driven social content website" according to its creators. Next to Reddit it's one of my favorite sites. Users submit websites to be Dugg or Buried by the community. Once the number of Diggs has reached a certain number within a certain time, that link will move onto the main page. Digg is less of a bookmarking service, and more of a community news site. However, you can still access all of the articles you've Dugg or submitted in your profile. Digg is rapidly evolving with new real-time virtualization tools and an improved and expanded interface. You must register to submit and Digg stories.
Del.icio.us
Del.icio.us is one of the largest tag-based social bookmarking sites around. Del.icio.us works by saving the links people add to their del.icio.us accounts, those links with the most saves in a certain time period show up on the main page. You can also browse through others links randomly, or form your own group of friends that have similiar interests to yours. Del.icio.us is a good place to start for an easy to use bookmarking service.
Reddit is somewhat of a cross between Digg and Del.icio.us. Users still share and save sites with friends, but articles are also voted up or down by the community. Like Digg the most popular pages over a certain period of time show up on the main page. The interface is spartan and easy to use, great for a site with so much content.
Smarking
Smarking, still in beta, is a tag-based system like Del.icio.us. Users submit articles which can be rated, visited, and commented on by the community. Smarking expands on the common friendship feature by also showing you users with similiar tastes as yours automatically. In addition, Smarking has a geographically based feature that allows you to locate users who are close to you to let you see what people in your area are reading and doing.
Kevin C. September 3rd 2006 kcas88@gmail.com
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『Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.』
