What Social Media Tools Are You Using?
As a result of a long vacation over the Christmas break, I was able to spend a lot of time exploring StumbleUpon. Although I feel like I might be a little bit late to the party with this one, I think that it is a very clever bit of design and I’m looking forward to playing with it a bit more (despite Mark Evans finding it only “quasi-interesting”).
I also started using Twitter (add me and I’ll add you back) and am not nearly as enthusiastic about it. However, it seems like many people are finding a great deal of value in it and I think I just haven’t given it a good enough chance. Ditto for Del.icio.us.
Because of this, I have decided to devote some time to really learning about each of these sites/services in the next few weeks.
I’ll be reporting back later with my thoughts and hopefully have a good idea of how Twitter, StumbleUpon and Del.icio.us can be of value.
I know that there are a lot of veterans of these tools out there and if you have any tips or suggestions (or even other sites tools I should be checking out) please let me know!
-Parker
January 31st, 2008 at 11:33 pm
Parker, I urge you to take the time to consider Del.icio.us–it has proven to be a very valuable tool for me.
When I first discovered Del.icio.us I didn’t pay it any attention at all until last fall when I took a second look at my boss’ suggestion–even then I didn’t think much of it until I installed the tagging buttons on my browser and now it has become an integral part of my web experience.
Reasons why I think it’s great:
1.) I have three computers in my life–home, school and work–it is awesome to have portable bookmarks.
2.) Link sharing within your network. Everyone has those people in their lives that they are constantly swapping links with; when you tag a link you can chose to also send it to someone in your network. The next time they log in they will be alerted that they have new links. I like this better then the Share feature in my Google Reader, simply because sometimes you might want to send a link to only specific people. This way, you know they’ll notice it.
3.) Tag surfing. And by this I mean being able to click on one of your tags and getting a list of all users’ links tagged with ‘whatever’ in the entire Del.icio.us network.
4.) Saved by XXX others. I guess this is similar to the above. Maybe I’m just nosy, but when I link something I want to see who else has tagged this because they have probably also tagged a bunch of other links I’d be interested in.
So, yeah, I am now what can be described only as a Del.icio.us evangelist. Can’t wait to hear how you like it.
February 2nd, 2008 at 6:12 pm
Thanks for the great Del.icio.us info, Amanda!
I will definitely give it a better look, and let you know what I think in a few weeks.
-Parker
February 14th, 2008 at 10:56 am
[...] « Honda Gets It More Ways To Connect February 14, 2008 As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’m going to be putting a lot more effort into learning the ins and outs of various social [...]
February 15th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
I’ve been using StumbleUpon for a few years now. It’s a great tool for pure mindless time-suckage. Whether it is valuable or not, I can’t comment. I’m just a viewer that enjoys the randomness and ease of effortless surfing.