Moving at the Speed of Creativity

There are currently 19 responses to “Opinions about auto-blogged social bookmark lists?”

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1. 1 On April 5th, 2008, Anna said:

   I think this is a great idea! Maybe it would be less distracting if it was in a sidebar? Or on a separate page in the site? Does Diigo do this? I need to check. I may implement this for our site if I can limit to specific tags. I’m sure our blog readers don’t care what I’ve added to my wishlist.

2. 2 On April 5th, 2008, John said:

   I really like ‘auto-blogged social bookmark lists’ sometime you can see how somebody’s daily thinking/work has gone.
   Personally I don’t post my del.icio.us to my blog but combine them with my feed.
   The lists are easily skimmed or skipped. I’d say keep them going.

3. 3 On April 5th, 2008, Andrew Churches said:

   Hi Wesley

   I think they have value - most of us subscribe to a blog because we like the thread, topic, concept or author. Often that means we would also enjoy the same sites.
   I would put in one caveat - the description field needs to be filled in. A URL alone and with just a title is useless and often irritating.
   With students I encourage them to do share links via social bookmarking tools. It makes a huge difference.
   Here is a rubric I use from my wiki
   http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/space/showimage/bookmarking+rubric.pdf

   Cheers

   Andrew

4. 4 On April 5th, 2008, Alice Barr said:

   I like the feature, it helps me sometimes when I want to reference the work I did on a certain day. Since I do not tend to write many posts, it appears that I only have links on my blog. It would be nice if they showed in the sidebar in a widget as Anna suggested. Might look a little cleaner.

5. 5 On April 5th, 2008, Bill Ferriter said:

   Hey Wes,

   I actually had these automatic postings going to my blog for awhile and really loved it. I thought it gave immediate new content to my site every day—a plus in the blogging world—and it let others check out the content that I was “moved” by. I figured it was collective intelligence at its best.

   I heard a few complaints, though—-people thought the posts were “throw-aways” and that the frequency of the posts ended up “hiding” the more “normal” posts on my site. They weren’t all that willing to go looking for the longer, fleshed out posts in the sea of daily blog posts.

   I think Anna makes a good point when she talks about using the sidebar option—-something that is possible with most blogging applications—and that’s something I’m building into my new blog template.

   The key if you’re going to use it for daily posting seemed to me to be:

   1. Don’t bookmark too much: 2 or 3 links was more than enough.
   2. Make sure you put significant detail into the “tag” when making it so that there is some context for the daily blog post: The link alone—or with a few short phrases—made it frustrating for readers.

   I wish Del.icio.us had a “once-a-week” option where all of the sites I tagged for a week were posted once for readers….That would be a little less overwhelming. Or if they had a “star rating system” for accounts—and only posted 5 star links in daily posts to my blog….

   Anyway….Hope this helps your decisionmaking.
   Bill
   @plugusin

6. 6 On April 5th, 2008, Frank's Blog said:

   Hi Wes,

   Personally, I like it. I know that other savvy Web 2.0ers have complained. But here is why I think it is a good idea. For example, some of my readers (and especially those colleagues that I am trying to wean onto the Internet) are not yet tech savvy. They don’t have a Google Reader account, don’t peruse their network’s del.icio.us sharings, are not yet readind a breadth of blogs, because they don’t quite have a sense of “network” nore using Web tools yet. They are developing. So, I want to give them exposure to more resources and widen their view, etc. The edublogosphere and edutech community can simply bypass those posts easy enough.

   And for me, anything that can automate some tasks, well isn’t that part of the beauty of technology?

7. 7 On April 5th, 2008, Mark Spahr said:

   I enjoy the auto-blogged bookmark lists. I usually can get at least one link of interest to me from each one. I would also rather read the links from my google reader as opposed to subscribing in delicious. It is easier to only have to read from one place. Delicious does offer a “link roll” which is a sidebar widget for blogs. I use it on my blog.

8. 8 On April 5th, 2008, Dean Shareski said:

   I think you still need to filter your bookmarks for your readers. Subscribers of your blog are interested in your writing first. If I want to subscribe to your bookmarks (which I do) I’ll do that within del.icio.us.

   That said, why not add a “mustread” tag to highlight the sites you deem really important, worthy of a blog post. I think it clutters your space without it.

   I blogged about this exact topic today as well.

   http://ideasandthoughts.org/2008/04/05/more-filtering-no-not-that-kind-of-filtering/

   So my final answer is a qualified yes.

9. 9 On April 6th, 2008, Sue Waters said:

   Mostly I’m not fussed with posts that are automatic del.icio.us links, and generally don’t read. Saying that Vicki Davis is one of the few that I was reading because she made sure that she included really good descriptions of why the link was worth reading. Shame though - she is now using diigo and I totally hate how it formats the links into the blog post — del.icio.us definitely does a better job in my opinion.

   Like Dean says filtering is important; links are probably good for new people who aren’t already doing much reading/researching and letting you find the information for them. If I really need a resource it’s easier to find it based on recommendations in Twitter — that is the best filter of all (if you have a sizable network).

10. 10 On April 6th, 2008, Hank Thiele said:

    Wes,

    Thanks - I have been wondering the same thing. After reading the responses here I will be adding my Diigo marks to my blog. It was very easy to set up.

    Hank

11. 11 On April 6th, 2008, Dave said:

    I like the idea….maybe a specific tag for whatever kind of blog you might have. I am trying this idea on my blog. I am on blogger and I have no clue what “out url” I should use. Anyone help with this???

12. 12 On April 6th, 2008, Britt Watwood said:

    Wes:

    I think it is a good idea for 2 reasons. First, I have my network (you included) in delicious feeding to my Google Reader via RSS. So I am already seeing all posts that all members of my network (46 currently) save daily. However, others would have to do the same to see my tagged items, so this gives them a quick scan without setting that up.

    Second, I think that if I am mindful of these daily posts, I will do a better job commenting on just why I chose to save a specific site. That can be helpful to both me and my readership.

13. 13 On April 6th, 2008, Frank's Blog said:

    @Dave, if you are using wordpress, I think the OUT_URL is simply your full blog URL with “/xmlrpc.php” appended to the end of it. See http://twitter.com/edublogs/statuses/784029084

    OK, here is what I have now decided to do. These conversations always stimulate me to think more deeply and become more efficient tool user. After reading Dean’s post, I now have added the tag “blogpost” to only those bookmarks that I want to pass to my blog via Diigo. Diigo allows me to select which tags to post to my blog, so no big deal.

    But, I still wasn’t happy with a “daily” only blog post option. I hope Diigo gives us a weekly option. I just want to post links weekly rather than daily. I think a daily post of links is just boring-looking more than anything. And if you don’t post story entries for a few days, you end up with a tedious sequential list of link lists. So, until Diigo gets that taken care of, I have decided to review my new links only once a week and, at that time only, will indicate those that are “shareable” with my special blogpost tag. This way, savvy readers aren’t too put off, and yet casual or novice Web users will still get some goodies that I have handpicked. And, aesthetically, presentation will look better, too.

    P.S. Also started to add descriptions, even though takes a bit longer it makes the whole thing more meaningful and higher chance for click-through.

    P.S.S Talking about making thinks more user-friendly .. sorry to mention this Wes, but your Captcha program is too too difficult. I had to reselect words 6 times until I got something that I could half-read and make a best guess. Surely something a bit easier out there?

    Thanks, Frank

14. 14 On April 6th, 2008, Anna said:

    Frank - OT but I also think the Captcha like Wes uses is hard. But it has an audio option which is LOTS easier. Just listen to the Martian talk with English numbers among it. Oh wait! I don’t have to do that this time… My word is hornblower!

    Okay, now back to the subject - have enjoyed reading this thread and I think for my own blog I will implement this using very good descriptions and a special tag just for this. AND I think I’ll be better at sharing blog posts in Google Reader!

    Thanks for opening this discussion, Wes!

15. 15 On April 7th, 2008, Joel Zehring said:

    I’m getting a lot out of your bookmark posts. Thanks for the great links.

16. 16 On April 10th, 2008, tom said:

    Sometimes I’ve found really good stuff that way. Then, sometimes I think it’s too much information (like all those insurance links the other day). I wish del.icio.us had an additional level besides private and public (maybe “publish”?) so that you can choose which bookmarks you want to appear in the blog.

17. 17 On April 10th, 2008, Wesley Fryer said:

    Tom: I agree that the “total sharing” mode which I’m now using with del.icio.us is too much. I am going to start exploring diigo soon and hope I’ll find a compromise solution which allows some sharing of links, but a more selective sharing.

18. 18 On April 13th, 2008, Sue Waters said:

    Okay I’ve decided to change my mind (it is allowed). Vicki Davis is using Annotated bookmarks from diigo which is definitely cool if you realise she’s added them. Definitely worth investigating if you haven’t checked them out. Here is an example just click on the word Annotated next to the title and it takes you to the page with the notes she has added.

19. 19 On April 14th, 2008, Wesley Fryer said:

    Sue: I’m making the switch to Diigo. Thanks for that link to Vicki’s post. I’m moving to Diigo based on Vicki’s shared experiences as well as others… Much more robust tool in many respects. I will be changing my auto-posted links as a result in the not-too-distant future.