The majority of people out there have probably saved their ‘favourite’ web pages on their computer on Internet Explorer or added them as bookmarks on Firefox. But how many people out there are actually using an online bookmarking service like del.icio.us and what are the benefits of doing so?
New phenomenon
Millions of people are using social bookmarking services to bookmark their favourite web pages - however these people are still in the minority because it’s still a relatively new phenomenon.
What are the benefits?
I believe that it’s only a matter of time before storing your bookmarks online becomes the norm. But why is that? Here are the 5 key benefits of using an online bookmarking service:
Benefit 1: Access from anywhere
The first key benefit is your ability to access you bookmarks from anywhere with a connection to the Internet. Because your bookmarks aren’t saved on your computer then this means that you can view and browse your favourite web pages from anywhere.
Benefit 2: Never loose your bookmarks
If you store your bookmarks locally on your own computer then what happens if your computer crashes and you loose all of your personal data? If your important information is stored on other people’s servers then this is limiting your risk.
Benefit 3: Tag your bookmarks
I’m sure that a lot of you will have a lot of bookmarks saved locally on your computer, yet struggle to store your favourite web pages it relevant categories. Wouldn’t you just love to store your information in multiple categories quickly and easily? Well, that’s exactly whattags are. All you do is pick the words that are relevant for each bookmark you are saving and you can find that link a lot quicker in the future by searching for your tagged word.
Benefit 4: Discover what’s popular
On most social bookmarking sites you can see what’s hot and what’s not - that is you can see what everybody else are sharing in their bookmarks for a particular tag. This is an excellent way of finding relevant bookmarks for you. Note: You don’t HAVE to share your bookmarks with other people, but most people don’t mind doing so.
Benefit 5: Network with like-minded users
If you see that one or two users are regularly saving the same bookmarks as you then you can make contact with them or add them to your ‘friends’ list to follow their bookmarking progress. This is an excellent way of benchmarking your bookmarking to ensure that it’s as relevant as possible to your industry.
Tips aimed at users
These five benefits of using online bookmarking service are aimed at users who wish to improve the quality of their own bookmarks.



