SOCIAL BOOKMARKING How to Use del.icio.us to Save, Recall and Share Links Jo-Anne Gibson June, 2007

Social Bookmarking in Plain English  For an overview on social bookmarking, watch this video:  -plain-english

What is Social Bookmarking?  Web-based saving, organizing and sharing of favorite links.  Links are accessible to the public through a specific network or website service.  Other users can search and view links by topic, category or randomly.

Today’s Most Popular Social Bookmarking Website  Started in 2003 as a hobby and informal way to share web pages with friends.  Purchased by Yahoo! in 2005 as service began to expand and grow in popularity. del.icio.us

del.icio.us  Is a free social bookmarking website service that allows users to save or tag, manage, access and share bookmarks of web pages from any computer all in one site.  Bookmarks are stored on the web instead of inside your browser on “Favorites” so that you can access them and tag new ones from any computer.  Can be as private or public as you wish and used by anyone who uses the Internet.

You can use del.icio.us to:  Keep links to your favorite sites, articles, blogs and music.  Share favorites with friends, family, collegues, students and the del.icio.us community.  Discover new things. See the interesting links that others have found.

Examples of how to use del.icio.us:  Research – keep track of sites  Collaboration – share sites with students and staff  Wishlist – build your own and share it  Vacation – plan a trip  Cookbooks – see what others are cooking and organize your recipes in one place

What are tags?  Keywords that you use to describe a bookmark.  Can be renamed or deleted at any time.  Can use as many as you like.  Can be categorized for easy reference.  Listed alphabetically.

Tags

HOW DO I CREATE A DEL.ICIO.US ACCOUNT?  All school computers currently have the del.icio.us icon on the Explorer Browser.

Creating an Account Go to “get started”

Select a username and password. You must enter your ; you will be sent an to activate your account. Your username will be used to identify your del.icio.us site. e.g. My del.icio.us site is: del.icio.us/jatacadia

Select bookmarklet buttons for any browser Adding del.icio.us Icons on Toolbar

For help adding buttons on your own, there’s a video tutorial at the instructions for manually installing the buttons.

How to Tag or Bookmark Sites While on the Internet site you want to save, click the “tag” icon on the toolbar.

 On school computers, you will be asked to enter your: Username and andPassword  At home, when you click “tag,” this step should be eliminated. This will bring up your del.icio.us account.

The web page title is automatically added to the description. Click on any popular tags to add them to your tags for the item or type in your own name on “tags.”

Adding Notes Highlight text on the page before clicking Tag and the text will be automatically included in the Notes.

Basic Tagging Tips  If you want to combine words in one tag, mash or use punctuation to separate: InformationLiteracy InformationLiteracy information_literacy information_literacy  Tags are not case-sensitive.  Be consistent.  Careful with your spelling!

To View Your del.icio.us Site  Click on the del.icio.us icon on the toolbar: or  Type in your del.icio.us site address: e.g. del.icio.us/jatacadia.ca e.g. del.icio.us/jatacadia.ca

Viewing Your Tags Click on a tag from the list on the right or the tags under an item to view all of your favorites with that tag.

Searching Your Tags A search will show results from your favorites first (if any) and then from other del.icio.us links.

Narrowing Searches To narrow your results, Combine more than one search term with “+”

Locating Popular and Recent Tags

Add an Account to your Network 1. Go to your network 2. Type the account name and click add 3. Your network defaults to public; go to network privacy if you want to change. Use the network to share links. Individuals must share account names to network in this way.

Making Changes  To account, bookmarks, tags and network.  Tags can be renamed, deleted or bundled.

Subcriptions  Subsciptions let you view new links added to a particular tag. 1.Go to subscriptions 2.Click on edit

3.Add a tag 4.Add a user (optional) to only see that tag from that user. 5.Click subscribe.

More Information About a Tag Click on saved by [n] other people to see the del.icio.us history for the item.

Searching for Similar Websites? Try similicio.us

References  Tasty Bookmarks PowerPoint, retrieved June 14, 2007 from  Del.icio.us, retrieved June 14, 2007 from  Social Bookmarking, retrieved June 14, 2007 from  Social Bookmarking is del.icio.us PowerPoint, retrieved June 14, 2007