Activity 1.5 – Bookmarking and Aggregation

What is social bookmarking? Social bookmarking allows users to bookmark, manage, publicly publish, share and comment on URLs that we want to share with others.

How could it be useful in the subject? It is useful as it allows us to gather bookmarks of web resources that are relevant to the subject and allows us to share these resources with our peers.

In the subject, we set up an account at http://del.icio.us and what this site allows us to do is store our bookmarks online, which means that we can access this list anywhere we want to. Furthermore, the use of tags allows us to manage our bookmarks, grouping them in categories (for example, the bookmarks relevant to the subject have all been tagged with elexp). We are also able to set up networks that allow us to share our bookmarks as well as view bookmarks of other users. So far in my network, I have included peers from the class. The site also allows us to view the most popular bookmarks of users from around the world.

It was interesting to find information on what del.icio.us can be used for -

RESEARCH – Writing an article? Researching an industry? Slaving away on your dissertation? Use del.icio.us to keep track of all the source materials and commentary that you find online.
WISHLIST – Go to any commerce site, find what you like, save it to del.icio.us and tag it as wishlist. Then you can tell people to check out your wishlist bookmarks by giving them a link to http://del.icio.us/dinht/wishlist .
PODCAST – Want to hear some great podcasts? Visit the mp3+podcast tag combination and start listening. Are you a podcaster? Start posting your mp3 files to del.icio.us and we will create an RSS feed for you.
VACATION – Planning a trip? Save links to hotels, activities, and transportation and use tags like “travel”, “vacation”, and “to-visit”. Collaborate with friends and family by using the “for:username” tag.
LINKLOG – Save bookmarks to interesting websites and add a bit of commentary to create a lightweight linklog. Then, use linkrolls or the daily blog posting feature to include your del.icio.us bookmarks on your blog or website.
COOKBOOK – Whenever you find a great recipe on a website, save it to del.icio.us. Tag it with the recipe’s ingredients or style of cooking, and then when you’re wondering what to make for dinner, you can use your saved bookmarks to help you remember the perfect recipe.
COLLABORATION – Friends, coworkers, and other groups can use a shared account, special tag, or their del.icio.us networks to collect and organize bookmarks that are relevant — and useful — to the entire group.

(http://del.icio.us/about/)
My bookmarks can be found at http://del.icio.us/dinht

What is Aggregation? Aggregation allows users to subscribe to websites that are continually updated. As aggregators are a software application it allows users to store these subscriptions on a personal page which can be accessed whenever it is needed.

What is RSS? Really Simple Syndication – refers to the coding that enables you to subscribe to web pages (or web feeds). This code allows websites that are stored in an aggregator to be automatically updated. To subscribe to a website users need to find the RSS link which is usually represented by this symbol or by this logo .

How can these be used in this subject? Aggregating all the web pages you read regularly, or subscribing to online journals or magazines enables you to save time constantly checking if a web page has been updated.

In the subject, we set up an aggregator at netvibes.com. Getting started I subscribed to RSS feeds available from the Sydney Morning Herald Website. I also subscribed to the eLearning Magazine feed. I also connected my Hotmail account to my aggregator and also installed the Facebook and del.icio.us application.