Social Bookmarking

Why is it significant?
Activities like social bookmarking give users the opportunity to
express differing perspectives on information and resources
through informal organizational structures. This process allows
like-minded individuals to find one another and create new communities
of users that continue to influence the ongoing evolution
of folk someones and common tags for resources. Using a folksong-
based tool for research lets you take advantage of the
insights of other users to find information related to the topic you
are researching, even in areas that aren’t obviously connected to
the primary topic. If you are looking for information about sailing,
for example, you might find that other users saw a connection
between sailing and boat repair, taking you in new, potentially
valuable directions. These kinds of tools also encourage users
to keep coming back because the folk sodomy and the collections
of resources are constantly changing. It’s easy to imagine
assigning a value for individual resources, resulting in a ranking
system that functions as a collaborative filter.


What are the downsides?
By definition, social bookmarking is done by amateurs. There is
no oversight as to how resources are organized and tagged. This
can lead to inconsistent or otherwise poor use of tags. For example,
if a user saves a bookmark for a site with information about
greyhounds but only tags the site with the term “greyhound” and
not also with “dogs” or perhaps “dog racing,” that resource might
never be found by someone looking for information about breeds
of dogs. Because social bookmarking reflects the values of the
community of users, there is a risk of presenting a skewed view
of the value of any particular topic. For example, users might
assign pejorative tags to certain resources. In addition, social
bookmarking means storing data in yet another location that you
have to maintain and update.