5 Social Bookmark Sites You Should Know

Social bookmarks are links shared over a network by users who have stored their favourite articles and online destinations on their personal profile. The links’ popularity and subsequent visibility on these sites is dependent on how many people have saved and “liked” the same link. This is essentially a grassroots method of discovering what people are interested in online.

1. Digg

Known as the web’s most popular bookmarking tool, Digg offers a truly personalized social bookmarking experience. Users are taken directly to “My News” upon login. What was formerly a collection of the most popular links is now a diverse stream of links (varying in popularity) that users can choose to follow, according to their interests. If users would prefer to view the most popular, there remains the option to select the “Top News” tab.

2. Reddit

Reddit combines link sharing and community building to construct a multifaceted network. The main page features an up-to-date stream of the most popular and controversial bookmarks. Users can join communities where they can submit, rate and comment on links related to a particular topic. Users also have the option to create their own Reddit community on a topic of their choice.

3. Delicious

Delicious is one of the oldest social bookmarking tools (and the pioneer of tagging). The main homepage displays a “hotlist” of the most popular links shared over the network. The main page also displays ‘”fresh links” (newly added) and an option to “explore tags” which displays the most popular keywords on the network. Tagging your links with the right keywords is essential in this network.

4. Diigo

Diigo is a great tool for sharing, collaborating and community building. Users can view their own library, their groups, as well as links posted by the network they follow and hot bookmarks featured from the entire community. This network is similar to the newest version of Digg as you choose to follow other users, but Diigo differs by allowing users to create and/or join groups. Within these groups, Diigo offers collaborative features such as highlighting important points and creating comment “post-its” on the articles posted.

5. Google Bookmarks

This is a private bookmarking tool with an option to create public or private lists to share with others. Bookmarks can be added directly to the site and/or imported from your browser. Google organizes its public lists by those most recently updated rather than by what is most popular. Users can share lists with their contacts over the website, or they can easily share lists over their existing social networks (Facebook, Twitter, and Buzz).