Module 7: Folksonomies, Social Bookmarking and Technorati

A. First read a little about Folksonomies:

From Wikipedia
Folksonomies: A User-Driven Approach to Organizing Content

B. Del.icio.us

Step 1: read about social bookmarking

• 7 things you should know about social bookmarking, from Educause
• Wesleyan's Learning 2.0 module on social bookmarking

Step 2: create a del.icio.us account

1. read How do I get started
2. go to del.icio.us
3. click the <get started> link at the top of the page
4. follow the 3 steps to create your account. DO!! all three steps, including install the buttons. You may need to verify your account request via an email from del.icio.us.
5. close your browser and open it again to be sure the buttons appear

Step 3: use the del.icio.us search tools to explore sites and tags

1. Whether or not you logged in to your del.icio.us account, you can search for useful web sites. Try doing a keyword search (like "library 2.0")
2. Click one of the related tags and note how the results list changes
3. Finally, click a user name under one of your results to explore someone's del.icio.us list

Step 4: build your own list!

1. Now try building your own list in del.icio.us. First, open the brower you used to create your account (this way you can use the buttons you downloaded)
2. Then, log in to del.icio.us
• You can also experiment with our group account:
• Username: BotLib
• Password: delpilot#
3. Go to one of your favorite sites and click on the TAG icon to add the site to del.icio.us. Fill in or edit the information in the description, notes, and tags fields. Then click save.
4. Continue adding sites. To check out your list of sites click on the other del.icio.us button on your toolbar.

Importing booksmarks!
If you have bookmarks in your browser that you'd like to upload you can use the import/upload in your settings.

Here are some exaamples of del.icio.us in libraries

• http://del.icio.us/lagrangeparklibrary
• http://del.icio.us/virtualref
• http://del.icio.us/SanMateoLibrary?setbundleview=show
• http://sul-ic-rdm.stanford.edu:8080/cubberley/blog/archives/66
• http://del.icio.us/sjlibrarylearning2

C. Technorati

Technorati is a search engine that allows you to search across blogs, videos, music and more. It uses tags input by users and blog owners to index the content.

Read about tags: http://technorati.com/help/tags.html

Search Technorati

Enter your search terms in the "search for..." box, or click on one of the tags on the homepage. Search for phrases with quotation marks.

The results page is made up of tabbed sections of results (blogs, videos, music, etc.)

In the Blogs results, Technorati shows the title and description of the blog as well as a link to the blog location. Technorati also provides you with some general information about the blog, its ranking, an author profile, a list of the most recent posts, and the top tags associated with the blog.

In Advanced Search you do more more focused keyword searches. You can also see if any blogs are commenting on a specific website by doing a URL search.

(you might compare your Technorati search results to Google Blog Search)

Take a look at Julie's Nursing worksheet on searching Technorati:

\\Mercury\library\PubLibrary\BI\Nursing & Health\bnurs350\2007\Library Worksheets Summer 2007\Searching Technorati.doc

*if you can't access this file let me know and I'll send it to you!


D. Reflect (?) If you have time please post any comments to your blog.

1. what are the strengths and/or weaknesses of del.icious?
   
   
2. can you think of ways to use del.icio.us as a reference and/or teaching tool?
   
   
3. do you have any classes coming up where blog content could be relevant? what strategies would you use to help students read and interpret blog content in your discipline areas?
   
   
4. sites like del.icio.us and Technorati use rankings (popularity? authority?) How should we talk to students about these features?