Thing 11 of 23 Things on a Stick deals with social bookmarking. Social bookmarking involves saving bookmarks to a public web site and tagging them. Tagging is the process of attaching one-word descriptors to a piece of information, whether it be a text document or a photograph. Tagging classifies information and is intended to enable researchers to look for information more efficiently. The tags are usually created by the author/creator of the information. While this does often result in quicker access to specific information, how things are tagged depends largely on each individual. A search of a specific tag may generate results that are quite different than the researcher intended. We already do tags on the posts on Skimming the Cream. Hopefully our tags are helpful to those who visit the site.
The sites listed in this thing have great names. I particularly like del.icio.us and furl. While I was not able to open the eight-minute video tutorial on the del.icio.us web site, exploring the other information was interesting. Bookmarking and tagging online can be useful as it allows access to this information from anywhere that has internet access. It also seems like it would be helpful to see what other people are looking at, or what they are not looking at. Sometimes it is important to know what sources have been found to be the most useful to the most people. Pagekeeper, which is specifically designed for educators, looks like it would be useful for teachers.
Social bookmarking does seem to have some potential as a tool for research assistance, though it should be used with discretion. As more and more information is accessed on the web, no doubt these types of tools will become more and more popular and increasingly easier to use.