A Guide To Social Bookmarking

You've probably noticed little coloured icons appearing on more websites recently - especially news related articles..wondering firstly, what on earth are they and secondly, should you care?

Well those icons link to social bookmarking sites and they are a very useful, almost ideological way to help connect people to the best and most interesting sites and content on the web.

Social bookmarking sites allow you to easily store useful and interesting web pages, tag them and then you choose to either keep for your own reference or share them with the 'community'. Social bookmarking sites effectively create micro communities of people with shared interests where users collectively determine what's hot and what' not. It's also an alternative to relying on search engines to source new inforation on the internet.

What is the cost?

Social bookmarking sites are all free to use but do require you to register. Once done though, bookmarking is just a single click away and will soon become a part of your daily web routine.

It really is a superb way to finding and giving exposure to worthy websites. Each of the sites works slightly differently so use the guide below help you choose the social site you think best fits your habits then use the links to sign up. You can also find out more about social bookmarking on Wikipedia.

Top 5 Social Bookmarking Sites:

Del.icio.us
Easy to use, intelligent, tons of useful features and articles. Might not appeal so much to main stream fun sites as more information based web users... To register, go to: http://del.icio.us/register For more info: http://del.icio.us/about

Digg
One of the original and still most popular social bookmarking sites. If you manage to get enough 'Diggs' and make it onto the Digg.com homepage your article, blog, video or podcast will get a massive amount of exposure. To register, go to: http://digg.com/register For more info: http://digg.com/about

StumbleUpon
Personal favourite Stumbleupon lets you easily cycle through recommended sites in your browser depending on your areas of interest. Also has an excellent video stumble feature. To register, go to: www.stumbleupon.com/sign_up.php For more info: www.stumbleupon.com/about.html

reddit
The Reddit website doesn't quite look very attractive and friendly for new users but their community is strong. It also has great news widgets you can drop into your blog or website tailored to your area of interest. To register, go to: http://reddit.com/login For more info: http://reddit.com/help/faq

Facebook
If you don't know about this one it may be time to leave the cave. It is now the social networking site on the web. Young Harvard graduate creator Mark Zuckerberg reputedly walked away from Yahoo's offer of (just) $800 million for his creation. Facebook is more of a social portal than strictly a social bookmarking site but it's mass usage justifies it's inclusion. To register, go to: https://register.facebook.com/r.php For more info: www.facebook.com/about.php

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