Social Bookmarking Tools (I): A General Review
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Bookmark History
Saved by 440 people (-135 private), first by anonymouse user on 2006-03-02
- Laundrygal on 2009-11-27 - Tags tags , social , bookmarking
- Kikeestelles on 2009-11-26 - Tags social , bookmark , paper
- Marcora on 2009-11-18 - Tags software , gmarks
- Daver230 on 2009-10-26 - Tags Tag
- Nickodoherty on 2009-09-25 - Tags socialbookmarking , tagging , folksonomy , tools , social , research , bb
Public Sticky notes
1) server-side software aimed specifically at managing links with, crucially, a strong, social networking flavour, and 2) an unabashedly open and unstructured approach to tagging, or user classification, of those links.
Highlighted by rulemanes
Tim O'Reilly has talked about an 'architecture of participation' [12] whereby a grassroots user base creates a self-regulating collaborative network. The result of this approach is that the best applications become more useful for all participants the more that people make use of them.
Highlighted by rulemanes
Social bookmarking tools also share this characteristic: the more they are used, the more value accrues to the system itself and thereby to all who participate in it.
Highlighted by rulemanes
Links are generally annotated with 'tags', which are free-form labels assigned by the user and not drawn from any controlled vocabulary. This is very much a 'bottom-up' (or personal) approach compared with the traditional 'top-down' (or organizational) structured means of classification.
Highlighted by rulemanes
This unstructured (or better, free structured) approach to classification with users assigning their own labels is variously referred to as a 'folksonomy' [n10], 'folk classification', 'ethnoclassification' [n11], 'distributed classification', or 'social classification'. Other terms that arise are 'open tagging', 'free tagging', and 'faceted hierarchy'. Following Adam Mathes in his paper 'Folksonomies – Cooperative Classification and Communication Through Shared Metadata' [21] we would generally incline to the term 'social classification', or even 'distributed classification', as this, to our minds, most closely describes the nature of the activity, although we must concede that the word 'folksonomy' has gained considerable currency and there is little getting away from it.
Highlighted by rulemanes
By contrast, a free tagging approach to classification is a jumbled, hit-and-miss affair, and any system that it may throw up must be discovered, or learned, after the event. In many ways this approach to classification mimics the Web itself in microcosm, compared to earlier, more static, information systems like Gopher, which required some due diligence in arranging the nodes of information. Some proponents of tagging have been dismissive of formal classification systems, although we believe the two approaches to be complementary.
Highlighted by rulemanes
Another approach that has been discussed (and, in the case of del.icio.us even implemented as 'tag bundles') is the tagging of tags, which could result in the creation of hierarchical folksonomies.
Highlighted by rulemanes
Lars Pind has suggested various possibilities including the following: a) 'suggest tags for me', b) 'find synonyms automatically', c) 'help me use the same tags others use', d) 'infer hierarchy from the tags', and e) 'make it easy to adjust tags on old content'.
Highlighted by rulemanes
This is very much in the spirit of folk tagging, rather than requiring users to adopt terms from some master vocabulary defined in an alien language. What this means for tag reconciliation is hard to say, but even within a given language, tag reconciliation is always going to prove troublesome.
Highlighted by rulemanes
There is a range from a 'selfish' tagging discipline, where the users are primarily tagging their own content for their own retrieval purposes, right through to a more 'altruistic' tagging discipline, where the user is tagging others' content for yet others to retrieve.
Highlighted by rulemanes
The majority of the social bookmarking tools reviewed here fall into the category of others' content tagged for their own retrieval purposes, while Technorati tags (as well as familiar HTML meta tags) are usually about the user's own content being tagged for others to retrieve.
Highlighted by rulemanes
- Personal user accounts (groups sometimes provided)
- Mechanism for entering links, titles and descriptions
- Browser bookmarklets to facilitate entry [n18]
- Classification by 'open' or 'free' tagging
- Search by tag or user (Boolean combinations sometimes allowed)
- Querying of links based on popularity, users, tags, etc.
- RSS feeds
- Extensions such as browser plug-ins
In many ways these new tools resemble blogs stripped down to the bare essentials. Here the essential unit of information is a link, not a story – but a link decorated with a title, a description, tags and perhaps even personal recommendation points. It is still uncertain whether tagging will take off in the way that blogging has. And even if it does, nobody yet knows exactly what it will achieve or where it will go – but the road ahead beckons.
Highlighted by rulemanes
Frassle does not assume that tags are necessarily related: two users' tags are determined to be related if they have been used to describe common links. The strength of the correlation between two tags therefore depends solely on the content they have been used to describe, not on the tags themselves. This reduces the problems of tag collision or divergence, which have been a primary criticism of tag vocabularies.
Highlighted by rulemanes
An interesting problem with hosting local copies of bookmarked pages is the potential for copyright infringement, if, for example, pages that require subscription access to view are being saved in their entirety on a third-party service. Furl has bypassed this problem by limiting access to the hosted copy to the original user who bookmarked it, and hence presumably has legitimate access to the content. Other users are simply directed to the original URL.
Highlighted by rulemanes
rich, social networking opportunities
Highlighted by markcmarino
folksonomy'
Highlighted by markcmarino
This is very much a 'bottom-up' (or personal) approach compared with the traditional 'top-down' (or organizational) structured means of classification.
Highlighted by shutterbug604
Tags generally produce a flat namespace, rather than the hierarchical structures that a taxonomy or other formal classification system usually provides.
Highlighted by shutterbug604
As Clay Shirky has pointed out [26], folksonomies move us from a 'binary' in-or-out classification system to an 'analogue' one in which items can exist in multiple categories, each weighted by relative popularity.
Highlighted by shutterbug604
Highlighted by shutterbug604
upstart Netscape browser. This was to be called Internet Explorer and
included a similar link manager that was dubbed Favorites.
Highlighted by mistypines
new, upstart Netscape browser. This was to be called Internet Explorer
and included a similar link manager that was dubbed Favorites. B
Highlighted by mistypines
Introduction
Because, to paraphrase a pop music lyric from a certain rock and roll band of yesterday, "the Web is old, the Web is new, the Web is all, the Web is you", it seems like we might have to face up to some of these stark realities [n1]. With the introduction of new social software applications such as blogs, wikis, newsfeeds, social networks, and bookmarking tools (the subject of this paper), the claim that Shelley Powers makes in a Burningbird blog entry [1] seems apposite: "This is the user's web now, which means it's my web and I can make the rules." Reinvention is revolution – it brings us always back to beginnings.
We are here going to remind you of hyperlinks in all their glory, sell you on the idea of bookmarking hyperlinks, point you at other folks who are doing the same, and tell you why this is a good thing. Just as long as those hyperlinks (or let's call them plain old links) are managed, tagged, commented upon, and published onto the Web, they represent a user's own personal library placed on public record, which – when aggregated with other personal libraries – allows for rich, social networking opportunities. Why spill any ink (digital or not) in rewriting what someone else has already written about instead of just pointing at the original story and adding the merest of titles, descriptions and tags for future reference? More importantly, why not make these personal 'link playlists' available to oneself and to others from whatever browser or computer one happens to be using at the time?
Highlighted by marcok
Furl
Highlighted by sutherix
Just as long as those hyperlinks (or let's call them plain old links) are managed, tagged, commented upon, and published onto the Web, they represent a user's own personal library placed on public record, which – when aggregated with other personal libraries – allows for rich, social networking opportunities.
Highlighted by apalme2003
ust as long as those hyperlinks (or let's call them plain old links) are managed, tagged, commented upon, and published onto the Web, they represent a user's own personal library placed on public record, which – when aggregated with other personal libraries – allows for rich, social networking opportunities.
Highlighted by apalme2003
This paper reviews some current initiatives, as of early 2005, in providing public link management applications on the Web – utilities that are often referred to under the general moniker of 'social bookmarking tools'. There are a couple of things going on here: 1) server-side software aimed specifically at managing links with, crucially, a strong, social networking flavour, and 2) an unabashedly open and unstructured approach to tagging, or user classification, of those links.
Highlighted by dcorking
Social Bookmarking Tools (I)
A General Review
Highlighted by maartencannaerts
... Flickr, one of the most well known and widely used of these tools, offers a different kind of service. Flickr is for managing images (specifically digital photos) rather than links per se. But it is so similar in purpose to the other tools that we include it here. Co-founded by Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake, it is now run as a commercial operation under the Ludicorp brand [n20].
Flickr has the widest user base of all these tools. This, perhaps, is not so surprising because it is built around photos – digital cameras and camera phones being prevalent these days – and there are very strong emotional drivers for sharing images. Flickr hosts users' photos on its own servers so that they are retrievable (in various size samplings) from anywhere over the Web. Flickr provides free user accounts, albeit bandwidth-capped for uploading, and premium paid-for accounts that limit the restrictions that are placed upon users. Photos can be aggregated into photosets and can be made public or private as desired.
Applications built on top of Flickr include Mappr [57] and Organizr [58]. ...
Furl (for 'File URL'), first programmed in '03 by Mike Giles, had its official public launch in January '04. It has now attracted several hundred thousand users. A distinctive feature of Furl is that it saves web pages as well as links with each member being allocated some 5 GB of storage – their very own personal Wayback Machine [59]. Furl was created in response to the author's personal need for full text searching in order to find information he had previously read. Many Furl users have built up extensive libraries, and full text searching is seen by many as the most important way to recall this information. Tagging is considered a secondary activity.
An interesting problem with hosting local copies of bookmarked pages is the potential for copyright infringement, if, for example, pages that require subscription access to view are being saved in their entirety on a third-p
Highlighted by piggex
Introduction
Because, to paraphrase a pop music lyric from a certain rock and roll band of yesterday, "the Web is old, the Web is new, the Web is all, the Web is you", it seems like we might have to face up to some of these stark realities [n1]. With the introduction of new social software applications such as blogs, wikis, newsfeeds, social networks, and bookmarking tools (the subject of this paper), the claim that Shelley Powers makes in a Burningbird blog entry [1] seems apposite: "This is the user's web now, which means it's my web and I can make the rules." Reinvention is revolution – it brings us always back to beginnings.
We are here going to remind you of hyperlinks in all their glory, sell you on the idea of bookmarking hyperlinks, point you at other folks who are doing the same, and tell you why this is a good thing. Just as long as those hyperlinks (or let's call them plain old links) are managed, tagged, commented upon, and published onto the Web, they represent a user's own personal library placed on public record, which – when aggregated with other personal libraries – allows for rich, social networking opportunities. Why spill any ink (digital or not) in rewriting what someone else has already written about instead of just pointing at the original story and adding the merest of titles, descriptions and tags for future reference? More importantly, why not make these personal 'link playlists' available to oneself and to others from whatever browser or computer one happens to be using at the time?
Highlighted by luomingxue
This paper reviews some current initiatives, as of early 2005, in providing public link management applications on the Web – utilities that are often referred to under the general moniker of 'social bookmarking tools'. There are a couple of things going on here: 1) server-side software aimed specifically at managing links with, crucially, a strong, social networking flavour, and 2) an unabashedly open and unstructured approach to tagging, or user classification, of those links.
Highlighted by feiyafei
The term 'folksonomy' was coined by Thomas Vander Wal, according to Gene Smith [67], and is a blending of the terms 'folk' and 'taxonomy'. While suitably folksy, and enjoying a certain cachet at the present time, it leans too much on the notion of taxonomy, which is not obviously present in social (or distributed) classification systems although may yet be derivable from them.
Highlighted by furler5
Because, to paraphrase a pop music lyric from a certain rock and roll band of yesterday, "the Web is old, the Web is new, the Web is all, the Web is you", it seems like we might have to face up to some of these stark realities [n1]. With the introduction of new social software applications such as blogs, wikis, newsfeeds, social networks, and bookmarking tools (the subject of this paper), the claim that Shelley Powers makes in a Burningbird blog entry [1] seems apposite: "This is the user's web now, which means it's my web and I can make the rules." Reinvention is revolution – it brings us always back to beginnings.
Highlighted by jahmount
Social Bookmarking Tools (I)
A General Review
Highlighted by maartencannaerts
This paper reviews some current initiatives, as of early 2005, in providing public link management applications on the Web – utilities that are often referred to under the general moniker of 'social bookmarking tools'. There are a couple of things going on here: 1) server-side software aimed specifically at managing links with, crucially, a strong, social networking flavour, and 2) an unabashedly open and unstructured approach to tagging, or user classification, of those links.
Highlighted by feiyafei
This paper reviews some current initiatives, as of early 2005, in providing public link management applications on the Web – utilities that are often referred to under the general moniker of 'social bookmarking tools'. There are a couple of things going on here: 1) server-side software aimed specifically at managing links with, crucially, a strong, social networking flavour, and 2) an unabashedly open and unstructured approach to tagging, or user classification, of those links.
Highlighted by feiyafei
The term 'folksonomy' was coined by Thomas Vander Wal, according to Gene Smith [67], and is a blending of the terms 'folk' and 'taxonomy'. While suitably folksy, and enjoying a certain cachet at the present time, it leans too much on the notion of taxonomy, which is not obviously present in social (or distributed) classification systems although may yet be derivable from them.
Highlighted by furler5
Social Bookmarking
Highlighted by ummchen
This paper reviews some current initiatives, as of early 2005, in providing public link management applications on the Web 013 utilities that are often referred to under the general moniker of 'social bookmarking tools'. There are a couple of things going on here: 1) server-side software aimed specifically at managing links with, crucially, a strong, social networking flavour, and 2) an unabashedly open and unstructured approach to tagging, or user classification, of those links.
Highlighted by ironick
The term 'folksonomy' was coined by Thomas Vander Wal, according to Gene Smith [67], and is a blending of the terms 'folk' and 'taxonomy'. While suitably folksy, and enjoying a certain cachet at the present time, it leans too much on the notion of taxonomy, which is not obviously present in social (or distributed) classification systems although may yet be derivable from them.
Highlighted by furler5
Architectures of Participation
Originally elaborated in relation to open-source software development, but equally applicable to any online community, Tim O'Reilly has talked about an 'architecture of participation' [12] whereby a grassroots user base creates a self-regulating collaborative network. The result of this approach is that the best applications become more useful for all participants the more that people make use of them. The online auctioneer eBay [13] is a classic example of this 'network effect' of users coming together for the benefit of all, although there are many others. Wikipedia [14], the free encyclopedia, with user-generated content produced at a fraction of the cost of more established publishers and at an unparalleled speed of delivery (sometimes extending to almost real-time updates), is just such another successful, self-regulating system. Other examples would, of course, have to include Amazon.com [15], Slashdot [16], and craigslist [17]. Within the scholarly domain one can also point to the e-print repository arXiv [18] and the catalog of online learning materials MERLOT [19] as examples of architectures of participation.
Social bookmarking tools also share this characteristic: the more they are used, the more value accrues to the system itself and thereby to all who participate in it.
Highlighted by draken
Social Bookmarking Tools
Highlighted by pierregorissen
We are here going to remind you of hyperlinks in all their glory, sell you on the idea of bookmarking hyperlinks, point you at other folks who are doing the same, and tell you why this is a good thing. Just as long as those hyperlinks (or let's call them plain old links) are managed, tagged, commented upon, and published onto the Web, they represent a user's own personal library placed on public record, which – when aggregated with other personal libraries – allows for rich, social networking opportunities. Why spill any ink (digital or not) in rewriting what someone else has already written about instead of just pointing at the original story and adding the merest of titles, descriptions and tags for future reference? More importantly, why not make these personal 'link playlists' available to oneself and to others from whatever browser or computer one happens to be using at the time?
Highlighted by koranteng
Introduction
Because, to paraphrase a pop music lyric from a certain rock and roll band of yesterday, "the Web is old, the Web is new, the Web is all, the Web is you", it seems like we might have to face up to some of these stark realities [n1]. With the introduction of new social software applications such as blogs, wikis, newsfeeds, social networks, and bookmarking tools (the subject of this paper), the claim that Shelley Powers makes in a Burningbird blog entry [1] seems apposite: "This is the user's web now, which means it's my web and I can make the rules." Reinvention is revolution – it brings us always back to beginnings.
We are here going to remind you of hyperlinks in all their glory, sell you on the idea of bookmarking hyperlinks, point you at other folks who are doing the same, and tell you why this is a good thing. Just as long as those hyperlinks (or let's call them plain old links) are managed, tagged, commented upon, and published onto the Web, they represent a user's own personal library placed on public record, which – when aggregated with other personal libraries – allows for rich, social networking opportunities. Why spill any ink (digital or not) in rewriting what someone else has already written about instead of just pointing at the original story and adding the merest of titles, descriptions and tags for future reference? More importantly, why not make these personal 'link playlists' available to oneself and to others from whatever browser or computer one happens to be using at the time?
This paper reviews some current initiatives, as of early 2005, in providing public link management applications on the Web – utilities that are often referred to under the general moniker of 'social bookmarking tools'. There are a couple of things going on here: 1) server-side software aimed specifically at managing links with, crucially, a strong, social networking flavour, and 2) an unabashedly open and unstructured approach to tagging, or
Highlighted by rudyleon
Because, to paraphrase a pop music lyric from a certain rock and roll band of yesterday, "the Web is old, the Web is new, the Web is all, the Web is you", it seems like we might have to face up to some of these stark realities [n1]. With the introduction of new social software applications such as blogs, wikis, newsfeeds, social networks, and bookmarking tools (the subject of this paper), the claim that Shelley Powers makes in a Burningbird blog entry [1] seems apposite: "This is the user's web now, which means it's my web and I can make the rules." Reinvention is revolution – it brings us always back to beginnings.
Highlighted by sborowski
those hyperlinks (or let's call them plain old links) are managed, tagged, commented upon, and published onto the Web, they represent a user's own personal library placed on public record, which 013 when aggregated with other personal libraries 013 allows for rich, social networking opportunities.
Highlighted by agahran
... Flickr, one of the most well known and widely used of these tools, offers a different kind of service. Flickr is for managing images (specifically digital photos) rather than links per se. But it is so similar in purpose to the other tools that we include it here. Co-founded by Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake, it is now run as a commercial operation under the Ludicorp brand [n20].
Flickr has the widest user base of all these tools. This, perhaps, is not so surprising because it is built around photos – digital cameras and camera phones being prevalent these days – and there are very strong emotional drivers for sharing images. Flickr hosts users' photos on its own servers so that they are retrievable (in various size samplings) from anywhere over the Web. Flickr provides free user accounts, albeit bandwidth-capped for uploading, and premium paid-for accounts that limit the restrictions that are placed upon users. Photos can be aggregated into photosets and can be made public or private as desired.
Applications built on top of Flickr include Mappr [57] and Organizr [58]. ...
Furl (for 'File URL'), first programmed in '03 by Mike Giles, had its official public launch in January '04. It has now attracted several hundred thousand users. A distinctive feature of Furl is that it saves web pages as well as links with each member being allocated some 5 GB of storage – their very own personal Wayback Machine [59]. Furl was created in response to the author's personal need for full text searching in order to find information he had previously read. Many Furl users have built up extensive libraries, and full text searching is seen by many as the most important way to recall this information. Tagging is considered a secondary activity.
An interesting problem with hosting local copies of bookmarked pages is the potential for copyright infringement, if, for example, pages that require subscription access to view are being saved in their entirety on a t
Highlighted by piggex
We are here going to remind you of hyperlinks in all their glory, sell you on the idea of bookmarking hyperlinks, point you at other folks who are doing the same, and tell you why this is a good thing.
Highlighted by je1954
A General Review
Highlighted by l0basetom
This paper reviews some current initiatives, as of early 2005, in providing public link management applications on the Web 013 utilities that are often referred to under the general moniker of 'social bookmarking tools'. There are a couple of things going on here: 1) server-side software aimed specifically at managing links with, crucially, a strong, social networking flavour, and 2) an unabashedly open and unstructured approach to tagging, or user classification, of those links.
Highlighted by vdabeele
With the introduction of new social software applications such as blogs, wikis, newsfeeds, social networks, and bookmarking tools (the subject of this paper), the claim that Shelley Powers makes in a Burningbird blog entry [1] seems apposite: "This is the user's web now, which means it's my web and I can make the rules." Reinvention is revolution – it brings us always back to beginnings.
Highlighted by vuorikari
This paper reviews some current initiatives, as of early 2005, in providing public link management applications on the Web – utilities that are often referred to under the general moniker of 'social bookmarking tools'. There are a couple of things going on here: 1) server-side software aimed specifically at managing links with, crucially, a strong, social networking flavour, and 2) an unabashedly open and unstructured approach to tagging, or user classification, of those links.
Highlighted by akwala
We are here going to remind you of hyperlinks in all their glory, sell you on the idea of bookmarking hyperlinks, point you at other folks who are doing the same, and tell you why this is a good thing. Just as long as those hyperlinks (or let's call them plain old links) are managed, tagged, commented upon, and published onto the Web, they represent a user's own personal library placed on public record, which – when aggregated with other personal libraries – allows for rich, social networking opportunities.
Highlighted by sibipoortman
This paper reviews some current initiatives, as of early 2005, in providing public link management applications on the Web – utilities that are often referred to under the general moniker of 'social bookmarking tools'. There are a couple of things going on here: 1) server-side software aimed specifically at managing links with, crucially, a strong, social networking flavour, and 2) an unabashedly open and unstructured approach to tagging, or user classification, of those links.
Highlighted by brungart
D-Lib Magazine
April 2005
Volume 11 Number 4
ISSN 1082-9873
Social Bookmarking Tools (I)
A General Review
Tony Hammond, Timo Hannay, Ben Lund, and Joanna Scott
Nature Publishing Group
{t.hammond, t.hannay, b.lund, j.scott}@nature.com
Highlighted by cchesher
Because, to paraphrase a pop music lyric from a certain rock and roll band of yesterday, "the Web is old, the Web is new, the Web is all, the Web is you", it seems like we might have to face up to some of these stark realities [n1]. With the introduction of new social software applications such as blogs, wikis, newsfeeds, social networks, and bookmarking tools (the subject of this paper), the claim that Shelley Powers makes in a Burningbird blog entry [1] seems apposite: "This is the user's web now, which means it's my web and I can make the rules." Reinvention is revolution – it brings us always back to beginnings.
We are here going to remind you of hyperlinks in all their glory, sell you on the idea of bookmarking hyperlinks, point you at other folks who are doing the same, and tell you why this is a good thing. Just as long as those hyperlinks (or let's call them plain old links) are managed, tagged, commented upon, and published onto the Web, they represent a user's own personal library placed on public record, which – when aggregated with other personal libraries – allows for rich, social networking opportunities.
Highlighted by dbindle
This paper reviews some current initiatives, as of early 2005, in providing public link management applications on the Web – utilities that are often referred to under the general moniker of 'social bookmarking tools'. There are a couple of things going on here: 1) server-side software aimed specifically at managing links with, crucially, a strong, social networking flavour, and 2) an unabashedly open and unstructured approach to tagging, or user classification, of those links.
Highlighted by goharris
Social Bookmarking Tools
Highlighted by mamkramer
Highlighted by hpncb9
Highlighted by hpncb9
Introduction
Highlighted by markcmarino
Highlighted by eemann
"the Web is old, the Web is new, the Web is all, the Web is you"
Highlighted by pcbrannon
the Web is old, the Web is new, the Web is all, the Web is you"
Highlighted by alexakaul
Reinvention is revolution – it brings us always back to beginnings.
Highlighted by hpncb9
Why spill any ink
Highlighted by eemann
allows for rich, social networking opportunities.
Highlighted by jewels3232
they represent a user's own personal library placed on public record,
Highlighted by jewels3232
just pointing at the original story and adding the merest of titles
Highlighted by hpncb9
tagging
Highlighted by hpncb9
This paper reviews some current initiatives, as of early 2005, in providing
public link management applications on the Web – utilities that are often
referred to under the general moniker of 'social bookmarking tools'. There are a
couple of things going on here: 1) server-side software aimed specifically at
managing links with, crucially, a strong, social networking flavour, and 2) an
unabashedly open and unstructured approach to tagging, or user classification,
of those links.
Highlighted by azaitchikrcn
utilities that are often referred to under the general moniker of 'social bookmarking tools'. There are a couple of things going on here: 1) server-side software aimed specifically at managing links with, crucially, a strong, social networking flavour, and 2) an unabashedly open and unstructured approach to tagging, or user classification, of those links.
Highlighted by pcbrannon
reviews some current initiatives, as of early 2005, in providing public link management applications on the Web
Highlighted by pcbrannon
This paper reviews some current initiatives, as of early 2005, in providing public link management applications on the Web – utilities that are often referred to under the general moniker of 'social bookmarking tools'. There are a couple of things going on here: 1) server-side software aimed specifically at managing links with, crucially, a strong, social networking flavour, and 2) an unabashedly open and unstructured approach to tagging, or user classification, of those links.
Highlighted by sociallearn
A number of such utilities are presented here, together with an emergent new class of tools that caters more to the academic communities and that stores not only user-supplied tags, but also structured citation metadata terms wherever it is possible to glean this information from service providers. This provision of rich, structured metadata means that the user is provided with an accurate third-party identification of a document, which could be used to retrieve that document, but is also free to search on user-supplied terms so that documents of interest (or rather, references to documents) can be made discoverable and aggregated with other similar descriptions either recorded by the user or by other users.
Highlighted by swiss_cows
A number of such utilities are presented here, together with an emergent new
class of tools that caters more to the academic communities
Highlighted by mistypines
Matt Biddulph in an XML.com article last year [2], in which he reviews one of the better known social bookmarking tools, del.icio.us [3], declares that the "del.icio.us-space has three major axes: users, tags, and URLs".
Highlighted by mrmoogshoes
while bookmarks allowed users to record sites of interest, they soon grew to become unwieldy in terms of needing to be managed within the confines of a simple, hierarchical structure
Highlighted by jaclynk
at least allowed for links to be easily recorded
Highlighted by markcmarino
Because, while bookmarks allowed users to record sites of interest, they soon
grew to become unwieldy in terms of needing to be managed within the confines of
a simple, hierarchical structure. It became apparent with the growing power of
the new search engines that it was easier just to search for a particular site
afresh each time – in effect, search engines were now able to provide a dynamic
bookmarking service, or bookmarks on demand.
Highlighted by lsstiles
, Microsoft, finally catching the wave, was engineering a vigorous response to
the new, upstart Netscape browser. This was to be called Internet
Explorer and included a similar link manager that was dubbed
Favorites. Bookmarks or Favorites had now become an integral part of
users' everyday web experience and would remain so until powerful search engines
such as Google and Yahoo! came knocking on the door. Because,
while bookmarks allowed users to record sites of interest, they soon grew to
become unwieldy in terms of needing to be managed within the confines of a
simple, hierarchical structure. It became apparent with the growing power of the
new search engines that it was easier just to search for a particular site
afresh each time – in effect, search engines were now able to provide a dynamic
bookmarking service, or bookmarks on demand.
Highlighted by mistypines
Hotlists, which, while still hierarchical and aping the common file system paradigm of folders and files, at least allowed for links to be easily recorded and for ready access to any recorded link from any page within the browser.
Highlighted by baoanngu
Highlighted by hpncb9
Taxonomies, however, were not done for. Early
collaborative attempts to build
out a shared
taxonomy, rather than develop a personal hierarchy of links,
resulted in
such endeavours as the Open Directory Project [
7
] and Zeal [
8
], as well as
commercial
operations like Yahoo! [
9
]. But these
web-based
directories would
soon struggle against the ever encroaching advance of the
search engine
Highlighted by mistypines
Taxonomies, however, were not done for. Early collaborative attempts to build
out a shared taxonomy, rather than develop a personal hierarchy of links,
resulted in such endeavours as the Open Directory Project [7] and Zeal [8], as well as commercial
operations like Yahoo! [9]. But these web-based
directories would soon struggle against the ever encroaching advance of the
search engine.
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hierarchical structure
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These would become the social link managers, with links not randomly discovered
or crawled by robots and spiders, but registered, tagged and rated by users for
their own benefit, and made available to other users [n9].
Robot wisdom was increasingly being challenged by the 'buzz latency' [11] that such a shared personal recommendation system creates.
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he more they are used, the more value accrues to the system itself and thereby to all who participate in it.
Tag Soup
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Bookmarklets appear as simple links and can be treated and stored as regular bookmarks but actually contain embedded JavaScript code that is executed when the link is activated.
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Tim O'Reilly has talked about an 'architecture of participation' [12] whereby a grassroots user base creates a self-regulating
collaborative network. The result of this approach is that the best applications
become more useful for all participants the more that people make use of them.
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Tim O'Reilly has talked about an 'architecture of participation' [12] whereby a grassroots user base creates a self-regulating
collaborative network. The result of this approach is that the best applications
become more useful for all participants the more that people make use of them.
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Social bookmarking tools also share this characteristic: the more they are used, the more value accrues to the system itself and thereby to all who participate in it.
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Social bookmarking tools also share this characteristic: the more they are used, the more value accrues to the system itself and thereby to all who participate in it.
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Social bookmarking tools also share this characteristic: the more they are used,
the more value accrues to the system itself and thereby to all who participate
in it.
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This orderly approach to cataloguing allows for both the validation and quality
control of known terms to be registered within an information system. By
contrast, the new link managers tend to use dynamic categorization systems
whereby the user annotates links with whatever terms seem most relevant. Links
are generally annotated with 'tags', which are free-form labels assigned by the
user and not drawn from any controlled vocabulary. This is very much a
'bottom-up' (or personal) approach compared with the traditional 'top-down' (or
organizational) structured means of classification.
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This is very much a 'bottom-up' (or personal) approach compared with the traditional 'top-down' (or organizational) structured means of classification.
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By contrast, the new link managers tend to use dynamic categorization systems
whereby the user annotates links with whatever terms seem most relevant. Links
are generally annotated with 'tags', which are free-form labels assigned by the
user and not drawn from any controlled vocabulary. This is very much a
'bottom-up' (or personal) approach compared with the traditional 'top-down' (or
organizational) structured means of classification.
Highlighted by mistypines
By contrast, the new link managers tend to use dynamic categorization systems whereby the user annotates links with whatever terms seem most relevant. Links are generally annotated with 'tags', which are free-form labels assigned by the user and not drawn from any controlled vocabulary. This is very much a 'bottom-up' (or personal) approach compared with the traditional 'top-down' (or organizational) structured means of classification.
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Lars Pind has suggested various possibilities including the following: a) 'suggest tags for me', b) 'find synonyms automatically', c) 'help me use the same tags others use', d) 'infer hierarchy from the tags', and e) 'make it easy to adjust tags on old content'. Currently only option e) appears to be in common use, presumably because it is the easiest to implement.
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This is very much a 'bottom-up' (or personal) approach compared with the
traditional 'top-down' (or organizational) structured means of classification
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Another approach that has been discussed (and, in the case of del.icio.us
even implemented as 'tag bundles') is the tagging of tags, which could result in
the creation of hierarchical folksonomies
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We note there have been some attempts to introduce structure within tags. Some users have adopted private conventions to indicate hierarchy (or other structural relationships) within an otherwise flat namespace, but these indications are just intended for personal use and cannot as yet be leveraged to any common advantage. Another approach that has been discussed (and, in the case of del.icio.us even implemented as 'tag bundles') is the tagging of tags, which could result in the creation of hierarchical folksonomies. This is an area that is worth tracking – there are no rules as yet.
Anecdotal evidence (see Jon Udell's screencast on del.icio.us [23]) supports the view that there is a natural tendency towards the convergence of tags. Strategies to facilitate this development are also possible. In a blog entry entitled 'Folksonomies: How we can improve the tags' [24], Lars Pind has suggested various possibilities including the following: a) 'suggest tags for me', b) 'find synonyms automatically', c) 'help me use the same tags others use', d) 'infer hierarchy from the tags', and e) 'make it easy to adjust tags on old content'. Currently only option e) appears to be in common use, presumably because it is the easiest to implement.
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although it should be noted that new regional bookmarking tools for French and Japanese users are already emerging
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English language tags, although it should be noted that new regional bookmarking tools for French and Japanese users are already emerging
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Bear in mind also that the terms used are, by definition, the very terms that
real users might be expected to use in future when searching for this
information.
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an 'analogue' one in which items can exist in multiple categories, each
weighted by relative popularity.
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folksonomies move us from a 'binary' in-or-out classification system to an
'analogue' one in which items can exist in multiple categories, each weighted by
relative popularity
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There is a range from a 'selfish' tagging discipline, where the users are primarily tagging their own content for their own retrieval purposes, right through to a more 'altruistic' tagging discipline, where the user is tagging others' content for yet others to retrieve.
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The nature of the application is largely responsible for driving a particular
tagging practice. For example, Flickr users are generally managing
personal collections of their own digital photos for private use or for sharing
with friends and family, while the blog aggregator Technorati [28] uses tags supplied by the user (either presented within an
RSS feed or linked to from the HTML page) to describe their blogs so that others
may discover them. The majority of the social bookmarking tools reviewed in this
paper fall into the category of users tagging others' content mainly for their
own benefit, although the bookmarks and tags are generally public, and users can
establish social networking opportunities.
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for the authors of this paper, tags are just one kind of metadata and are not a
replacement for formal classification systems such as Dublin Core, MODS, etc.
[n15]. Rather, they are a supplemental means to organize
information and order search results
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spamming.
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Search engines, at this point, tend to index and search a global space – not my
local space. My space comprises the documents I am interested in and the
documents of other users that I want to follow.
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Another important aspect on the social axis is user privacy. By publicizing
their bookmarks, users are opening up to other users on the Web their own sphere
of interests
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The short answer to this is that social bookmarking tools, as with the Web at
large, usually pay users back many times over in utility for whatever privacy
they may have surrendered. But if absolute privacy is important, then it's
certainly best to stay away from these tools (and, indeed, possibly the Web as a
whole).
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There is no question but that spamming of these new social tools can and will
occur – it almost goes with the territory that social forums will foster such
'parasites' and some instances have been noted already. So far, however, it does
not seem to have been a major problem, largely because spam has been drowned out
by legitimate use. But obviously, continuing vigilance must play a part, and
robust defences may need to be put in place should this start to become
problematic.
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A listener hears a song on the radio, uses their cell phone to text back to a
website with tags and star ratings. Later, returning to the website, the user
can type in their phone number and see the songs they have bookmarked
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This ability to sort out the wheat from the chaff is an important win over a
web-based search engine
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Another important aspect on the social axis is user privacy
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A further issue to consider is tag spamming
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As a simple demonstration of the way in which social bookmarking tools might benefit academic research,
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Usernames are presented first, followed directly by any tag or tag combination.
If no username is presented then a '
/tag' path element is prefixed
to the path to avoid name collisions of tags with possible usernames.
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- Personal user accounts (groups sometimes provided)
- Mechanism for entering links, titles and descriptions
- Browser bookmarklets to facilitate entry [n18]
- Classification by 'open' or 'free' tagging
- Search by tag or user (Boolean combinations sometimes allowed)
- Querying of links based on popularity, users, tags, etc.
- RSS feeds
- Extensions such as browser plug-ins
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Tools
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Table 1. Reviewed Social Bookmarking Tools - Comparison
| Tool | Sponsor | Public Launch | Users | Links | Tags† | Business Model |
| CiteULike | Privately Managed (UK) | Nov. '04 | >2k | >25k | >60k | Possible academic funding, targeted advertising and/or sale of code |
| Connotea | Nature Publishing Group (UK) | Dec. '04 | >2k | >4k | >3k | Supported by NPG as potential driver to other products |
| del.icio.us | Privately Managed (US)‡ | Dec. '03 | 50k | 1m | 2m | Advertising being considered |
| Flickr | Ludicorp (Canada) | Feb. '04 | 245k | 3.5m | - | Annual premium account ($60), Google Ads |
| Frassle | Privately Managed (US) | Nov. '03 | ≈1k | >1m | >30k | - |
| Furl | LookSmart (US) | Jan. '04 | >100k | >2m | 100k | Advertising |
| Simpy | Privately Managed (US) | May '04 | >2k | >300k | - | - |
| Spurl.net | Spurl ehf. (Iceland) | Jan. '04 | ≈16k | >1.6m | ≈300k | Sale of web site information, ASP services, advertising |
| unalog | Yale University (US) | Jan. '04 | >250 | >5k | 700 | Yale-supported R&D project |
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D-Lib Magazine
April 2005
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We note that traditional classification schemes incline to the universal, whereas user classification schemes incline to the contextual, i.e., they tend to be user-centric, time-centric, or even action-centric (cf. the tags '
toread' or 'read_later' common in del.icio.us).
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Public Comment
on 2006-03-31 by kossatsch
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