The internet has made it possible to gather a great deal of information very quickly. Search engines have shown themselves to be useful in gathering this information, but they are not necessarily the best method. This is where a special type of social media known as social bookmarking comes into play. However, there are many who do not understand just what social bookmarking is all about.
We have all, at one time or another, found a website that was particularly useful and bookmarked it in our web browsers. Social bookmarking works in a similar fashion, but instead of saving the link to the site in a web browser, it is saved on the web. This makes it possible to share the link with family and friends who might also benefit from the information provided on the site.
When a site is marked in this fashion, the user has the option to create metatags that tell other users what sort of content they can expect to find on the site. These tags are usually public. The web also holds a variety of websites that gather these tags and use them to rank sites based on user comments and tags. Many people consider these sites to be more intelligent than search engines in helping people find certain types of information.
Websites such as Delicious.com, reddit, and digg provide a forum where people can mark sites and tag them. Then, as sites get more recommendations, they move closer to the top of the rankings for the type of information or use that users find on them.
For example, one may be searching for a particular type of information on a topic. One of these sites may have two links listed that contain the info being sought. One may have over a hundred recommendations or tags while the other only has a handful. It becomes obvious that the one with the most recommendations is likely to be the more useful of the two options based on user input.
Social bookmarking sites often allow users to browse all categories to see what other users have found interesting or useful enough to tag. Listings may be sorted by most popular, what has been added recently, or category of sites such as news, sports, technology, etc.
What began as a simple method of sharing links with members of one’s family and close friends has grown significantly over the years. Today, social bookmarking has created a whole new class of websites that serve as social search engines. People can use these sites to stay current on any type of news that interests them as well as following trends in shopping and other activities. All one has to do is visit one of these sites and type the tags or categories one wants to see and the most popular sites reported will show up in the search results in order from most popular to least.
This social media makes it much easier to find the exact type of information one wants without the need to search through page after page of results listed on traditional search engines.