What is the point of del.icio.us?

March 29th, 2007 | jchaager | commentary, technology, websites

I’ve been around the net for a number of years since back in the days of Mosaic. This last week, I finally decided to see what the deal was with del.icio.us. I’ve heard about it from various sources and decided that maybe it was time for me to see what all the hubbub was about. So I signed up for an account and started trying to figure out what it was all about.

I started by adding most of the bookmarks from my web browser, adding tags to each as I entered them in. With that done, I could see that my bookmarks centered around certain topics. But, now what?

I’ve read that del.icio.us is supposed to be a social bookmarking site where you can share bookmarks you’ve found with friends. That’s a nice idea, but if you don’t know anyone else on del.icio.us, what’s the point? The only vague use I’ve found is the ability to easily access the bookmarks from where ever I might be. It’s convenient, but hardly a reason to go through the hassle of adding a bunch of bookmarks to the site and then having to maintain them.

Maybe what it needs is a way to track the number of times I visit a particular bookmark so that it can start indicating to me what I’m actually interested in instead of what I think I’m interested in. Or perhaps the ability to do some trending and see how my interests in certain topics (as indicated by the tags) ebb and flow over time. Being somewhat of a numbers guy, I like to see pretty graphs of data, so such analysis would appeal to me. It would also be an interesting way to view the overall zeitgeist of the del.icio.us population over time.

What do you think? Have I missed the point of del.icio.us? Are my ideas brilliant or absurd? How do you use del.icio.us?