Cam23 2.0: Week 10, thing 18: Reflection

What I have gained from this programme so far

Rejuvenation and extension of the things I learned last year: new widgets to fit to my blog & Twitter feed, knowledge of what one actually does with a Creative Commons licence, tricks for editing screenshots.

Opportunity to measure, and reflect on, my changing way of using Delicious and bit.ly . My subjective perception had been that I was now using bit.ly in preference to Delicious. But, after counting posts from equivalent months in 2010 and 2011, I came to see that my ratio of Delicious use to bit.ly use had been roughly equal in both years, and that my use of both had declined to roughly equal degrees. A valuable corrective, as statistics often are.

The question those figures can't answer by themselves is "Why?" Yes, I know. On that I am still thinking, and maybe I'll find some hypothesis that can have statistics thrown at it.

Which thing I particularly liked or disliked

Oh I did enjoy showing off what I had found about Google Calendar! Almost as much as if I had invented it myself. And demonstrating it with LightShot & all.

Which of the forthcoming things I really can't wait to try

QR codes. I have been using them increasingly at the Haddon, picking up scraps of technique as I go along, and I look forward to reading how to handle them properly.

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!

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Thing 12: Delicious

I've been using Delicious since March. It was, I suppose, a consequence of my Twitter enthusiasm -- I heard about so many new things worth reading, and needed to put them somewhere, and was not sure where I'd be when I got the opportunity to read them. Delicious was the obvious next step.

Why Delicious rather than Digg or reddit, I can't say. Perhaps Delicious was at the top of my mind for no better reason than its cupcake logo. I keep my consumption of those things under control by means of a diet and a chocolate protocol (details on request) but I can still think about them. And, icing or no icing, Delicious turned out to be fit for purpose.

The Delicious pages from libraries are daunting examples to follow. The Haddon has a page of links, with no Delicious involvement, in its existing web presence, and I sometimes promote new discoveries by email & Twitter. I will think about what a Haddon Delicious page would do in or to that scheme of things.