Social bookmarking is an activity performed over a computer network that allows users to save and categorize (see folksonomy) a personal collection of bookmarks and share them with others. Users may also take bookmarks saved by others and add them to their own collection, as well as to subscribe to the lists of othersa personal knowledge management tool. Although using social bookmarking growing in popularity one should consider the [http://www.aviransplace.com/index.php/archives/2005/09/05/social-bookmarking-a-threat-to-privacy/ threat to privacy] when using these services.
This new part of the web started around late 2003, when del.icio.us was launched. It quickly gained popularity, many similar services appeared online, tagging became widespread in some other online services. In mid-2005, with the launch of My Web 1.0 BETA by Yahoo! the practice of social bookmarking moved much closer to mainstream.
Drawbacks of current implementations include: single word categories, although many services allow multi-words to be enclosed in inverted commas, no mechanism to define or refine categories, no synonym/antonym control or related terms and no hierarchy.
A useful feature is RSS (protocol) feeds per category (tag) that you can subscribe toalerting you to new links in your areas of interest.
=Tools=
[http://www.aworldofhelp.com/ aworldofhelp] Users submit and rate links in numerous categories. The highest rated make the front page.
[http://www.BlinkList.com/ BlinkList] Social bookmarking with slick interface and new ways for organizing tags.
[http://blogmarks.net/ Blogmarks.net] A variation with thumbnails and Atom (standard) enabled.
[http://www.citeulike.org/ CiteULike] Social bookmarking for academic papers.
[http://www.connectedy.com Connectedy] This service allows the establishment of pseudonymous online link libraries. Users may impose arbitrary categorical hierarchies on their links and choose which categories and links to make public and which ones to keep private. The Connectedy site has particularly good SEO properties.
[http://www.connotea.org/ Connotea] Social bookmarking for scientists.
[http://de.lirio.us/ de.lirio.us] An open source clone of del.icio.us, open data formats and private bookmarks.
[http://del.icio.us/ del.icio.us] Currently the most used software application.
[http://digg.com/ digg] social bookmarking system where the links that are decided to be more popular, are dug to the homepage
[http://dinnerbuzz.com DinnerBuzz] Social bookmarking of restaurant reviews.
[http://www.feedmelinks.com FeedMeLinks] Social Bookmarking since 2002.
[http://www.flipskipper.com FlipSkipper] social bookmarking manager that allows users to pull concurrent searches from Yahoo!, Google News, and del.icio.us when surfing.
[http://www.furl.net Furl] Similar to del.icio.us: stores copies of the pages saved, automates finding users with similar interests, archives can be exported in MPLA or APA citation format.
[http://www.givealink.org GiveALink] Donate your bookmarks for academic research.
[http://www.linkblog.com.br/ linkblog] Portuguese.
[http://www.zdot.com Live Bookmarks] Share your bookmarks, RSS feeds for all bookmarks. Easily add keywords for your bookmarks. Instant searches.
[http://bookmarks.linuxquestions.org/ LQ Bookmarks] Social Bookmarking, tagging and annotating all things Linux and Open Source.
[http://myprogs.net/ MyProgs] Social bookmarking for programs you use.
[http://www.netvouz.com/ Netvouz] Social bookmarking using either categories or tags. Share your bookmarks online or keep them private. RSS feeds for all bookmarks. Add2Netvouz button for easily bookmarking new sites, import/export, automatic link validation and lots of other features.
[http://www.network.ltd.uk/ Network Menus] Social Bookmarking within a web browser toolbar.
[http://www.oyax.com/ O Y A X] A fast and quick social categorized bookmarking service with groups.
[http://www.rawsugar.com/ RawSugar] Socially enhanced web search based on hierarchal tagging of bookmarks and favorites. Include s multi-word categories, mechanism to define and rename categories, and hierarchy.
[http://reader2.com/ Reader²] Share the list of books you read or recommend, find new books by tags/authors. Multilanguage.
[http://reddit.com/ reddit] Social bookmarking where your votes affect your karma points.
[http://sourceforge.net/projects/scuttle/ Scuttle] Another open source clone of del.icio.us. [http://www.wazima.com/ Wazima], [http://bookmarks.blauerbote.com/ Blauer Bote Bookmarks], [http://www.indiagram.com/ IndiaGram], [http://www.leze.de leze.de] and [http://scuttle.org/ scuttle.org] amongst others are based on the scuttle software.
[http://www.shadows.com/ Shadows] Social bookmarking with tags, comments and ratings. Shadows toolbar puts users one click away from a discussion forum for any page on the web.
[http://www.SimilarThings.com/ SimilarThings] Social website creation and management. Folksonomy-driven websites.
[http://www.simpy.com/ Simpy] Social bookmarking with tagging and full-text searching.
[http://www.spurl.net Spurl] Similar to del.icio.us: stores copies of the pages saved.
[http://www.StumbleUpon.com/ StumbleUpon] Bookmarking, social networking, friends-network, random browsing within interest-groups.
[http://www.sync2it.com Sync2It s BookmarkSync] Effortless social bookmarking, millions of hand-picked sites, real-time RSS feeds, public & private collections. Features automatic clustering technology.
[http://www.taghop.com taghop] Follow where people are going, what they are thinking, how they rate and what they say.
[http://www.textnotes.de Textnotes.de] Social notes manager. Easy integration of references to books, news and articles.
[http://www.thethingsiwant.com/ TheThingsIWant] Universal wishlist service with Social Bookmarking and RSS feeds.
[http://unalog.com/ unalog] Open source bookmarking software written in Python_programming_language.
[http://www.urlex.info URLex] Personal/Friends/Community bookmarking and rss feeds.
[http://www.web-feeds.com Web Feeds] Web Feeds is a social bookmark site with a difference, users moderate and decide which items make it to the home page.
[http://www.erational.org/software/wiklink/ Wiklink] Tools to synchronize bookmarks with your browser.
[http://www.wists.com/ Wists] Visual bookmarks, wishlists, photoblogs.
[http://www.wurldbook.com wURLdBook] Share webreferences and rss feeds with others and more.
[http://www.yoono.com/ Yoono] Social Bookmarking based on browser bookmarks (no tags needed), includes a search engine, an RSS Reader, web monitoring and sharing functions. Windows application and firefox extension.
=External links=
[http://www.irox.de/roxomatic/856 Comparison of 19 different social bookmarking services]
[http://www.dlib.org/dlib/april05/hammond/04hammond.html Social Bookmarking Tools (I): A General Review]
[http://www.dlib.org/dlib/april05/lund/04lund.html Social Bookmarking Tools (II): A Case Study - Connotea]
[http://blendededu.com/2005/07/blinklist-learning-in-blink-of-eye.html Social Bookmarking Tools (III): A Case Study - BlinkList for online learning]
[http://h2obeta.law.harvard.edu/64211 Social Bookmarking Resources]