What is Del.icio.us?

Summary: Del.icio.us is a free service where thousands of people store their bookmarks, enabling you to see what’s trendy and popular. Bloggers can encourage readers to add their posts, allowing greater reach for a blogger’s content.
During your blogosphere travels, travails and trials, you may have noticed references to ‘delicious links’ or a strange spelling of the word delicious with three dots in it: ‘del-dot-icio-dot-us.’ Here’s the scoop:

  1. Del.icio.us is a site where thousands of users store their favorite online links and resources. (This is called a social bookmarking service – yes, just like the Backflip service back in the tech boom days of yore.)
  2. When the favorites of thousands of users are collated, trends and enables you to to see what’s trendy, what’s popular and what’s emerging.
  3. Bloggers can add links to their posts enabling del.icio.us users to post that link to their list of bookmarks – this can promote your links as they are getting exposure in the del.icio.us ‘recently bookmarked’ list.
  4. Del.icio.us was one of the first major sites to use tagging, which allows users to tag their favorite bookmarks with keywords of their choice instead of having to select from a pre-defined list of categories.
  5. Del.icio.us is free to join.
  6. The domain name for del.icio.us ends in ‘dot U S’ instead of ‘dot-com’. (Technically ‘del’ is the sub-domain with ‘icio’ as the domain name and ‘dot US’ as the suffix- also called a top-level domain or TLD.)
  7. Del.icio.us was acquired by Yahoo! in 2005.

Exploring Del.icio.us

  1. Go to the del.icio.us homepage.
  2. Click on ‘recent‘ to see items recently bookmarked by other del.icio.us users. This is a ‘real-time’ list of online stuff being cataloged by thousands of del.icio.us users.
  3. Click on ‘popular’ to see what the most popular bookmarks are. You’ll see a list of links along with how many del.icio.us users have added them to their favorites.
  4. On the right side of either the recent or popular lists, you’ll see a list of keyword tags that users have attached to their bookmarks. Click on a tag to see recent and popular bookmarks tagged with that keyword. For example: popular links tagged with the keyword ‘photography.’
  5. Try using the search box in the upper right to see what pops up.

You’ll notice that del.icio.us is still pretty ‘tech heavy.’ Much like blogging, the early-adopters of social bookmarking are folks who aren’t skittish about techie stuff. That’s why we gotta get ‘real people’ involved!
So, now that you’ve bopped around del.icio.us as a casual observer let’s get you in the mix:

How to Get Started Using Del.icio.us

  1. Create a del.icio.us account. Register here…
  2. Add a ‘browser button’ to your web browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari). Here’s how…
  3. When you see something you want to bookmark, click on the browser button and you’ll be able to automatically add that bookmark to your del.icio.us bookmarks list. You can also tag that bookmark with keywords to allow you find it faster at a later date.
  4. Also: You might see links under posts prompting you to ‘add this post del.icio.us bookmarks.’ For example: Click here to add this article to your del.icio.us bookmarks.

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Comments

14 responses to “What is Del.icio.us?”

  1. jo de lucia Avatar
    jo de lucia

    Hi Andy,
    I am a 75 year old grandma of six grandchildren doing my best to become an overage techie!! So I am reading and re-reading your wonderful book,”Blogwild”.I created a blog about the game of life on a free blogging website and now I am having trouble finding it! (But I will keep searching!)
    Love and Joy to you and your loved ones.
    Jo

  2. Pamela Slim Avatar

    Hi Andy!
    Any hints for how to add the “add this article to your del.icio.us bookmarks” at the bottom of each post using Typepad?
    (And how can you not love the 75 year old grandma above?)

  3. Love Coach Rinatta Avatar

    Andy, this is a great article. Thanks for explaining Del.icio.us. How do I make a link for my blog/site that allows others to bookmark it on Del.icio.us?

  4. Solopreneurial Tendencies Avatar

    What is this delicious thing?…

    I am frequently asked by my clients and others about del.icio.us when they see the “add to del.icio.us” link at the bottom of my posts. …

  5. Glenda Watson Hyatt Avatar

    Thanks Andy! I have seen del.icio.us on numerous sites, but did know what it was, until now. I’m now curious to try it.
    Keep on blogging wildly!

  6. Techie Tips Avatar

    Andy’s take on del.ico.us…

    Interesting synergy of minds … my friend Andy Wibbels, (he’s the one who got me to reconsider my dislike of blogging) … writes about del.icio.us in his newsletter post this week. I still haven’t quite made the automatic del.icio.us posting…

  7. Nancy Tierney Avatar

    Thanks, Andy, for explaining what the heck this del.icio.us thing is all about!
    I always feel like I should know these things, but I don’t, so I appreciate you taking the time to teach us in such a simple, straightforward way.
    P.S. Have you crashed yet?

  8. lipitor-side-effects Avatar

    straight from the telegraph comment pages!

  9. tenuate Avatar

    I answered her questions, I just did not volunteer any further information.

  10. abilify Avatar

    Secret History featuring yet another media appearance for Bessie and Ted.

  11. accutane Avatar

    I sit down at my desk and start writing the job description.

  12. 78b97cbce11c Avatar

    78b97cbce11c…

    78b97cbce11c1a198c22…

  13. Jay Avatar
    Jay

    I think this is the most clear explanation I have heard about del.icio.us. I would like to share these del.icio.us tools that the community has built around this service.

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