I’m a big social bookmarker, perhaps too big. As I was looking at my account yesterday, I realize I have 403 links bookmarked at BlinkList.
And that is nothing to compared to some folks. But what in the world am I going to do with 403 links? How can I reasonably use or manage this information?
Interestingly enough, I care little about the “social” part of social bookmarking. I am compelled to use BlinkList because: 1) It is easier to manage a larger number of links with it. 2) I can access my bookmarks from anywhere.
BlinkList is most useful to me as a means to track my comments. It is a part of the puzzle to excerpting my comments in the sidebar of my blog. It also powers the business links section on the home page of my site.
My thought on social bookmarking, like the use of categories on my blog, was to keep the number of tags I use to a bare minimum. That was done by using more high-level approach with tags like “web 2.0″ and “podcast”.
I’m not sure that works though. What I find more useful are very specific tags for very specific information. For example, during the research I did for my post on NSA wiretaps and MySpace, I bookmarked all links under nsaandmyspace. Now, I know exactly what sorts of links I can expect to find there. Same thing goes for my networkneutrality links.
Then there is this problem – article not found. That’s probably a pretty common problem for news type links. How many of my 403 links no longer work? There is really no way to tell.
Marshall Kirkpatrick brings up a whole other issue – the pain of having multiple social bookmarking accounts. He wants to be able to separate work from personal links rather easily. I sort of do that via private links in BlinkList but it is annoying to have to always check that box. And my personal tags still show up in my account (even though I’ve told them they shouldn’t), although viewers can’t actually access them.
The reality is that I don’t need 403 links. There are probably hundreds of links in BlinkList that I really am never going to use again. I’m going to rethink my whole approach to social bookmarking. And it may be as drastic as exporting my links, cleaning them up, and starting all over again.
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Ken Yarmosh is a consultant who helps organizations get the most out of their technology investments. He works with technology users and creators across various industries, focusing on technology education and strategy. With over 7 years IT experience, Ken has worked with small businesses, non-profits, federal agencies, and multi-million dollar companies.
His online efforts include acting as the Editor for the Corante Technology Hub and authoring the TECHNOSIGHT blog.
