Delicious? (Thing #13)

Okay, so unless you've been living under a rock in the online world, you've at least heard of Del.icio.us - but that's about as far as I'd gotten. I never bothered going to the site to check out what exactly this site was about, and why it was getting so much buzz. So, thanks to this challenge, I finally know what Del.icio.us is and why people think it's just so yummy.

I can definitely see the potential and uses for research purposes, and if I was back in college, I'm sure I'd be jumping on this site in a heartbeat. And if I was interested in more online social networking than I already do, then I'd also be joining for that aspect.

One of the informative links I found via the PLCMCL2 account was this one on Splogs, which includes the tidbit that 'some 56 percent of active English-language blogs are spam' - and the article explains why that's actually a very bad thing, including the following:

"Blogs are the leading edge of what is often called Web 2.0, the vision of the Internet as a bottom-up, communal platform for data of all sorts that is generated and continually updated by its users [...] Unfortunately, the very openness and ease of use that make these Web 2.0 sites popular will inevitably make them perfect targets for spammers [...] People in the industry disagree about how to beat back spam, or whether it can even be done. But there's no dispute that if the blogosphere and the rest of Web 2.0 can't find a way to stop the sleazeballs who are enveloping the Net in a haze of babble and cheesy marketing, then the best features of Web 2.0 will be turned off, and it will go the way of Usenet, which was driven to desuetude by spam."

It's a long article but well worth the read. Ever wonder why Blogger and other sites require you to type in a 'word verification' sequence of distorted letters and/or numbers? Those are 'Captchas' (an acronym standing for 'completely automated public Turing tests to tell computers and humans apart').

But anyway, back to Del.icio.us!

I think it's a great idea but just not a site I would really utilize. Therefore, I didn't create my own account - it would have required installing some options and I tend not to do that unless absolutely necessary. Still, I'm glad I found about what the site's all about and perhaps someday I'll be in a position to either need and/or want to use it.