Bookmarking Enhances Personal Productivity From my weekly newsletter. Subscribe by filling in the box to the right.


Here are a couple of tricks I use to shave hours each month off the process of organizing information and publishing it on blogs and websites. Publishing features are some of the least understood and most useful services that bookmarking sites offer.

There are more than 50 social bookmarking sites on the Internet, including such popular brands as Feed Me Links, Linkroll, Ma.gnolia and Clipmarks. A good list is here. Most share a common set of features: You can quickly save and annotate Web pages, share them with others and subscribe to new entries. Most offer some added value on top of those basic functions, such as page previews, e-mail and ratings. All the services that I've found are free.

I use two sites that each excel at different things. For basic bookmarking and sharing, del.icio.us has the largest audience and the best browser integration. I can bookmark any page to del.icio.us by hitting a control key combination, entering tags (the autocomplete feature is a nice touch here) and then hitting enter. There are no mouse movements required (I'm a keyboard junkie) and the process is fast and simple.

What I don't like about del.icio.us is its 255-character limit on annotations. That's because I like to attach comments about the articles I read and upload them to my blog. There isn't much you can say in 255 characters. Diigo plugs that gap. It's a bit clumsier to use, but I can annotate to my heart's content. Any annotations that I choose to make public are shared with other Diigo users who visit that page. I can also highlight passages and attach sticky notes to sections of the page that others can see.

The real value that I get out of both of these tools, though, is in publishing. I maintain three blogs and two Web sites, so I'm posting new material all the time. Web-based content management systems are slow and awkward to use, so I like to prepare and pre-format as much content as possible before logging on to the server.

Del.icio.us has a delightful feature called "link rolls" that enable you to automatically group bookmarks according to tags that you specify and feed them into a Web page. All you need to do is plug a little piece of JavaScript code into your website. Every time you add a bookmark, it's dynamically displayed on the Web page.

For example, on my site's speaking page, the list of recent appearances is nothing more than a bookmark list from del.icio.us. So are the "Latest News" and "Recent Articles" sections in the two sidebars. All I have to do to update those lists is to add or modify my del.icio.us tags. My site simply grabs the latest feed and displays those entries.

Diigo has cool tools for posting to a blog. When I read something interesting online, I bookmark it with Diigo and write my description and commentary in the annotation box. I attach the appropriate tags and save. When I'm ready to post to my blog, I simply check the boxes next to the relevant bookmarks and Diigo automatically produces a page consisting of every bookmark I've selected, along with my annotations. I can edit the entries in the site's simple editor and then copy and paste the whole thing into my content management system. Here's an example of what the final output looks like.

Both del.icio.us and Diigo also offer you the option to tell them to post certain bookmarks and annotations automatically to your blog on a daily schedule. There's no logging in to your content management system and the whole process is transparent. You can read instructions on how to do this on Diigo's tools page or del.icio.us' settings page. Here's an example of what the finished product looks like.

I personally think del.icio.us does a better job of auto-posting, but I still can't get around that 255-character limit. Given a choice between writing more briefly or settling for a little less than the optimum format, I'll stick with Diigo.

Labels: socialbookmarking

  ¶ 8:54 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

  How StumbleUpon Makes Sharing Easy and Fun

From my weekly newsletter. Subscribe by filling in the box to the right.

According to my e-mail service provider's reports, a lot of subscribers to my newsletter skip my opening essay each week and going directly to a little item called "Just for Fun" that I include in every newsletter. Just For Fun is a link to a funny, offbeat or just plain bizarre item that I find on the Web.

It may look like I spend hours each week looking for source material, but my real secret is StumbleUpon, which is a popular example of the new breed of social bookmarking sites.
Social bookmarking is one of the hottest group activities on the Internet, and it's capable of driving enormous amounts of traffic if your site is lucky enough to be selected. Over the next couple of issues of my newsletter, I'll look at some of the more popular bookmarking sites and explain how they work. Although I caution against relying on raw traffic stats as an indicator of success, I recommend you make social bookmarking a staple of your promotion efforts.

Bookmarks have been around since the early stays of the Internet, having been included in the earliest browsers. Bookmarks are an easy way to keep track of information you've seen and want to return to, but as a standalone tool, they're not very interesting.

Where they do get interesting is when you share your bookmarks with others. As I pointed out in an earlier newsletter, social bookmarking is kind of a human-powered search engine. As more and more people bookmark and comment upon the same content, a richer description of the content emerges. Also, web pages with a lot of votes can rise up the popularity stack, making them more prominent and more useful to interested people. Social bookmarking sites aren't nearly as exhaustive as search engine indexes, but every single entry has been vetted by a person.

StumbleUpon is one of my favorite examples of this genre. Once you become a member, you can install the StumbleUpon toolbar and immediately begin flagging interesting sites. Your selections and descriptions go into a common area where others can see what you chose and why. As others vote for the same sites, those selections rise in the StumbleUpon hierarchy.As a user, you can subscribe to stumbled sites by category. When you click the "Stumble!" button in the toolbar, you automatically go to a random site that has been selected by other members. Sites that have been favorably reviewed more often are more likely to turn up in your random "stumblings."

It's perfectly OK to stumble upon your own site. This isn't gaming the system, because your selection only becomes important if other people vote for you as well. If nobody else finds your page interesting, nothing much will happen, but if you attract enough interest you can draw an astonishing amount of traffic.

I found this out myself recently when I stumbled upon an entry in a blog I maintain called Newspaper Death Watch. Apparently some other people liked my selection. That blog, which normally gets about 100 visitors a day, received more than 1,200 visitors in one day, nearly all of them from StumbleUpon.

Not surprisingly, most of those visitors came and left in just a few seconds. But a few of them did stick around and the site's average traffic levels increased about 20% after that one incident. This was hardly a make-or-break event, but it's one indication of how social bookmarking can quickly generate a lot of visibility for your website.

Labels: socialbookmarking

  ¶ 7:16 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

  Daily reading 03/15/2008

Is MySpace Good for Society?

A New York Times columnist asks six thought leaders a simple question: "Has social networking technology made us better or worse off as a society?" Their consensus: both.

The Inconvenient Truth About Social Media Marketing
Aaron wall offers a succinct and persuasive argument against link-baiting. We need more of this rational thinking. Link-baiting is a waste of time.

Corporate Blogging - How the Pros Do It
Scott Monty provides thorough coverage of an SXSW panel on corporate blogging. Includes some nice nuggets, such as Dell's customer relations philosophy: "they've empowered every employee to apologize."

Jeff Jarvis tells why you should reach out to the customers who say they hate you

What happens when 207 people freeze simultaneously for five minutes in Grand Central Station? Watch this...

Labels: blogging, social_media, socialbookmarking

  ¶ 8:30 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

  Demo stuff that I'll use Note: Video presentations of the products mentioned below, as well as most other presentations from Demo, are available here. Blogger won't accept the embedded videos and I don't have time to mess with it.

Here are some products and services I saw at Demo that I plan to try out for my own use:

Graspr – There used to be a great site called Learn2.com that showed how to perform life tasks ranging from making a soufflé to fixing a leaky pipe in simple words and pictures. I don’t know what became of it; the URL now points to a software retailer. Graspr gives the Learn2 concept a social media twist. Members can upload how-to videos and annotate each other’s creations, sharing tips or advice on how to do something better. Members can also vote on the most useful content. This is a good way to mine the wisdom of crowds while also enabling people to connect with others who have similar interests and expertise.

Propel – This is quality-of-service (QOS) for the PC. Developer Propel Software Corp. argues that when people are frustrated with Internet performance on the desktop, the culprit is often their own PC. A PC doesn’t distinguish between a file download and a VOIP session, for example, so bandwidth-critical applications may suffer because low-priority jobs are getting an equal share of the pipe.

QOS is a discipline that assigns priorities to applications so that some packets get priority on the network over others. It’s been implemented in corporate networks for years, but Propel’s utility brings the same concept to the desktop, allowing the user to define priorities for bandwidth demand. Propel also provides a simple dashboard to monitor traffic and make sure all is well. The product should be available by the end of the year. If it works, it’s a no-brainer that I’ll use it.

Diigo – I’m an active user of the del.icio.us social bookmarking service, but I’m frustrated by its limitations. A big one is that del.icio.us only provides a few characters with which to describe the pages I bookmark. I frequently run out of space trying to write a description.

Diigo is social bookmarking for serious researchers. Users of its toolbar can highlight and annotate passages on bookmarked Web pages. People can comment on each other’s bookmarked pages and highlights. Essentially, the service creates group discussion around Web content. Anyone with the Diigo toolbar can see other users’ annotations and sites that choose to implement the Diigo protocols can provide these capabilities even to non-Diigo users.

There are other innovatives features in this release, including a function that lets you create a PowerPoint-like slide show sequence using Web pages. I’m not sure I see much utility in that, but the highlighting feature alone could be enough to make me switch from del.icio.us.

Yuuguu - screen sharing has been around since the early days of Microsoft NetMeeting, and is still a core feature of services like GoToMyPC.com. You can also download open-source screen sharing software like VNC. So the idea isn't new, but Yuuguu has implemented it in an elegantly simple way.

Yuuguu WebShare users can share their screens with others on the fly by simply clicking on names in an AOL Instant Messenger-like buddy list. The shared screen comes up in a browser window and users can easily pass control of their screen to others, with everyone seeing the results. The company pairs the service with a global audio conferencing system. It’ll make money from that and give away the software client for free.

MyQuire – Another Web 1.0 idea that many find a new life with a social media twist is project management for consumers. In the early days of the Web, several Internet businesses launched services that let consumers collaborate on everyday group projects like organizing church socials and softball leagues. The services were limited by the technology of the time, particularly the reliance on e-mail for communication and limited file-sharing. MyQuire improves on the collaborative features of the early efforts and adds standard social media tools like photo and file-sharing. The company is in stealth mode for a couple of more months, but the demo version of its service looks interesting.

LongJump - As a small-business owner, my financial management processes are embarrassingly rudimentary. At some point, I probably should make the switch to Intuit’s QuickBooks, but LongJump would argue that it can deliver all that functionality and more for a low monthly fee. The initial service combines 14 common business applications and an integration platform that developers can use to add others. Monthly fees will start at around $25.

The integration platform is very similar to Salesforce.com’s app exchange concept. While there's nothing particularly new about LongJump’s business model, its aggressive pricing and impressive feature set could make it an attractive service for small business owners.

Labels: demo07, SaaS, social_media, socialbookmarking

  ¶ 9:10 AM 2 Comments Links to this post