Wednesday 10 August 2011

Cam23 2.0: Week 7, thing 12: Bookmarking tools

Only this: a year ago I rejoiced in the Delicious cupcake logo, feeling that the utility of the site excused such hedonism. But now I compare Delicious with the URL-shortener bit.ly. Delicious has the things I will read if I get round to it; bit.ly has the things I have read and think worth passing on.

So now Delicious charges me not just with icing but also, even more than last year, with not having read. And I find myself using it less often, probably in consequence. The statistics are glum. In June-July 2010 I added 23 sites to Delicious (not the 23 Things); in the equivalent months of 2011 it was just 10.

Have you had a comparable experience?

Ah, there might be some such comparables in those 23things posts I missed while Clare & I were biking home from Chester last week. But that means more things I haven't read!

rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

9 comments:

  1. The Delicious/Bit.ly comparison is interesting. I haven't used Delicious before, but use the favourites function on Twitter to 'star' the links I want to read later - I used to catch up with all of these fairly often but lately the list is just growing and growing! Maybe when I come to the end of 23 Things I'll have more time to catch up!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Have you tried ReadItLater Annie? Then you can have the satisfaction of ticking them off your list as you read them ;)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Not yet, but I'm looking forward to trying it out! We've only just got the internet sorted out at our new flat, so I'm in the process of catching up with everything now. Lots of Things to explore!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Actually, looking at my own blog again, I see that last night's comparisons were a tad lacking. I said I was comparing Delicious w. bit.ly, but gave no bit.ly figures; & then compared Delicious 2010 w. Delicious 2011. But now I've done a 4-way comparison, which I won't open a spreadsheet for. Figures refer to additions to the sites in June-July of the years in question.

    Delicious 2010 23
    Delicious 2011 10
    bit.ly 2010 95
    bit.ly 2011 38

    So my bit.ly use has dwindled at roughly the same rate as my Delicious use.

    Is there significance in the proportion between my use of the two sites? In both years I'm using bit.ly about 4 times as much as Delicious. There's some difference between the kinds of thing that I put in the two places -- Delicious with the longer articles, bit.ly with logins, short information pieces, &c. -- but that's an impression, not based on a detailed count.

    Anyone like to compare comparisons?

    ReplyDelete
  5. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Previous post was not removed by self-censorship. It was a redundant copy of the one stamped 10 August 2011 22:24.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Chester? My dear hometown - hope you had a lovely time up there.

    On the debate proper though, I didn't realise that you could use bit.ly as a bookmarking tool, that's an interesting one to try, though Delicious is slowly seducing me.

    ReplyDelete
  8. bit.ly as a bookmarking tool is perhaps a case of re-purposing, or even kludging. But the comparison between my own use of the two sites sprang automatically to my mind.

    As to Chester: we were there overnight, the rest of the staging posts being Market Drayton, Stafford, Tamworth, Shearsby (Leics), Old (Northants) & Ellington (Cambs). We suspended our diet for the duration & I put on 13lb!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Sir I made a mistake, it should have been 9lb not 13. (After Evelyn Waugh, letter to Laura Waugh, 31 May 1942 - don't have page ref. to hand.)

    ReplyDelete