I was having a think about del.icio.us last night, mostly because my bookmarks are in such bad shape, and sorely need maintaining. I was thinking about the different ways that people use it, and how it isn’t really actually working for me at the moment, and what I can do to change that.

My account is a terrible shambles. I’ve had it since Dec 2005, and I’ve now got something in excess of 600 items bookmarked, but I’m just not happy with the way I’m using it. I use it more as a surrogate for a traditional browser based bookmarking system (which it is obviously very useful for) and less for keeping track of articles and posts that I’d like to remember or read later (which I’d like to use it for). I’m finding it very hard to change my usage of it, mostly because my tagging is so awful. I have far too many tags, and in the system as it stands, it’s more or less impossible to edit them effectively.

I keep meaning open another account to keep track of all my bookmarks for work, but I keep hesitating, mostly because I know how easy it is to let it all spiral out of control. Do any of you use it for work/professional bookmarking? If so, do you have a better way of keeping it neat and tidy, or have you found that it tends to get messy fast?

I’m anxiously waiting for the beta to become public (there’s a preview of it on Techcrunch). Del.icio.us is such a good service, and very web 2.0 at heart, but it’s no way near as user friendly as it should be, which is a shame.

Only vaguely relatedly, but all the Facebooking law librarians out there should be part of Lo-Fi’s new group ‘UK Law Librarians for Publisher’s RSS Feeds’. We’re going to take on the man and hopefully try and convince the UK legal publishers that it’s in their and our best interests to start publishing this material as RSS. So much easier, so much more current and timely, and so much paper saved from the wastebasket. It’s win-win people. (Also, in the interim, do check out Nick Holmes homebrewed version. He’s a star for putting this together)

While I’m griping about web 2.0 products that are less than spectacular in some areas - why is the groups function in Facebook so poor? I tend to forget that groups exist because there isn’t (unless I’m not looking hard enough) a way of being notified when there are changes to a group. Which is a shame, because obviously social interaction is at the heart of Facebook, and not being able to interact effectively with the groups that you’re involved in is just disappointing.

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I started using Google Reader recently, mostly to see what everyone was talking about, but also because Bloglines had started to become too annoying to use.  And I think I’m converted.  What I’m really loving is the Star feature as it means I don’t have to leave all the good posts marked as unread and I can see everything in the same place.

There’s been a lot of fantastic posts lately which are in my Starred items folder that I really want to share.

To start with is a post by Scott Vine over at Information Overlord that I think needs to be read by CEO’s and managing
partners everywhere.  It’s called Wasting Time - Facebook and other Fallacies.  Scott highlights some pretty relevant stuff about wasting time that all these so called ’studies’ on Facebook seem to ignore.

Kathryn Greenhill at Librarians Matter wrote a good post on power in Library 2.0 called What’s new about Library 2.0? Shift in power.  She raises a good point about the 2.0 movement about the whole ’2.0 is about being user-centred’.  She then goes on to outline where she feels the power has shifted.

So, if being user centred is not new, and Library 2.0 isn’t only about new tools, what is new about it? Why should we lift our heads from the stuff we are already doing and take notice of it? To me, the new element that Library 2.0 brings to our libraries is a shift in power balance - between us, our users, suppliers, software vendors, non-users.

On the topic of 2.0, The Other Librarian wrote a fantastic post titled Under the Hood of Web 2.0 : the top ten programming concepts for librarians to understand. Definitely a useful post to read if you’re into the whole web 2.0 thing and want to know more about how it’s all actually working.

There’s been a lot of talk about the OEDB list of top 25 library bloggers. I definitely agree with the comments many made that their methodology needs a little bit of work. However, as a response, Meredith Farkas has started a survey - the Top Three Library-Related Blogs Survey. The survey is open until September 29 so head on over and fill out your three favourite library blogs.

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I’ve noticed a lot of people succumbing to Facebook and getting accounts there and I’m one of them. I joined about a week ago, added some of my friends, and then got incredibly frustrated at it.

A lot of my frustrations come from things where I can understand why they’ve done what they’ve done, but I wish they hadn’t. For example, I’ve gone to two different universities, and lived in two different countries. My friends come from a variety of places. However, I can only be part of one regional network at a time, and I can’t join the group for one of my old universities, as I need a current email address. The uni thing I can understand. The regional network bit baffles me though. Another annoying thing was that when I joined the network for my current university I was then no longer in the network for London. Annoying thing number 3 - I’ve got about 6 friends on there at the moment, but when I look at my profile I only see one, as he is the only one in the London Network.

I get the feeling that I’m missing something. That I just don’t ‘get’ it. So far, no one I’ve asked has been able to tell me what the appeal of the site is, except to say they love it. MySpace I get, even if I don’t like it (too much sound and graphics that make my eyes bleed). Ning, while I don’t have an account (Yet!!) I see it’s use. Same with LinkedIn. Facebook just looks boring, and not user friendly.

Is there an evangelist out there that can explain it to me?

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