My new obsession...Ma.gnolia - Social Bookmarking
Roots connects you with the Ma.gnolia community as you browse the web. It's an idea that's profoundly simple and pleasing to the eye: while you're looking at a website, click the Roots bookmarklet and see what the Ma.gnolia community thinks of that site.
First, we should discuss social bookmarking. What is it and why should you look into it? Social bookmarking is a means to keep your collection of bookmarks on the web versus only on your home computer. The benefits of this are immediately obvious. No matter where you go, or what computer you are on, you have access to your bookmarks. Good, yes? Here is where the social part enters...you can share all your bookmarks and see what others find worth saving!
Ma.gnolia is a relatively new social bookmarking tool. It made it's formal debut February 2006. But, don't dismiss it because it is the new guy on the block. You might wonder why I like Ma.gnolia so much more than the others (which are awesome in their own right). The others being technorati and del.icio.us. I use them all, but I tend to use technorati and del.icio.us for blog business, and use Ma.gnolia for more personal use. It just unfolded that way. Some things just take a natural course. Like a river. (Excuse that last phrase...Ma.gnolia brings out the Zen in me.)
For me, the advantages of Ma.gnolia is the fact that it stores a picture of your bookmarked website, so even if it goes offline, you can still view the information. Another thing. Ma.gnolia takes the social part a step further. It features groups that you can join or you can start your own group. Maybe you just want to have a discussion about a website. No problem. It also features something called Ma.gnolia Roots. You can see it in action on my sidebar.Very social. And the Ma.gnolia website is a design masterpiece. I like the look of it...simple, clean, easy. Not the utilitarian look of del.icio.us and not as complicated as Technorati.
But, how do you keep track of all your bookmarks? There are no folders. That is right. No Folders. Social bookmarking uses a concept that makes categorizing by folders obsolete. It is a little something called a tag. (Blogger had to be different and called their tags labels. But, we know what they are.) Let me explain the advantages. Let's say you are into graphics and recipes. You want to bookmark a website you found called Slashfood - Food Porn. Before, you would have to choose what folder to put it in...recipes or graphics. With social bookmarking, you 'tag' each site with words. In this case you could use both recipes and graphics. Then anytime you returned to Ma.gnolia and did a search for recipes, that site would be listed with all the others you tagged 'recipes'.
By the way, did I mention it was pretty....
UPDATE: the Roots icon is no longer in my sidebar
Labels:
Blogger Beta,
Classic Blogger,
General,
Ma.gnolia,
Web2.0
25 Comments:
This is unrelated to this post, but...I noticed that you an expland and collapse items in your side bar using the little [+/-] tool.
Have you posted about how to add that feature to your blog - specifically in the sidebar? If you have, I must not be able to find it (a link, please?), but if you haven't, I'd love to know how you did it.
Thanks so much.
Yes, I did a post on it called Hide/Show, Expand/Collapse - Navigation Element.
Sounds like a great social bookmarking tool. :)
Very glad I discovered your site via Blogging Chicks - I've been perusing all the various beta Blogger hacking sites in preparation for creating a new blog template, and I'll be using some of your ideas. So thanks. :)
Carolyn, Ma.gnolia is wonderful...at least I think so! Glad you found my blog helpful. After you get yours going, post back. I'd love to see it!
@Annie: get a Magnolia button here.
Hans, you are too sweet! Thanks. I did see your reply on your blog, but hadn't tackled it yet.
Hi Annie, that's fine, I already had the code for Magnolia but not an icon, so I needed it anyway. You being a user just pushed me to putting th icon in my icon bar.
Thanks, Annie, I guess I just found the perfect social bookmarking-service for me!
Alastor, isn't is just wonderful? I love the easy feel. I'm slowly getting all my bookmarks there. It is nice being on a different computer and having access to all my bookmarks. Yes, I know other bookmarking sites do it also, but not with the style and grace of ma.gnolia.
That's true. I never liked delicious for looking so uncomfortable, but Magnolia is smooth and elegant, and has cool features like the roots-function or the community structure as well.
have you looked at tagtooga?
it's a cross between a wiki, open directory, and a social bookmarking service. has lots of geeky goodness but takes some effort to "get it" but once people get it they love it. everything is communal, EXCEPT if you tag a bookmark with your IP address, then it's your's only. it can hold video, mp3s, code fragments, blurbs, software downloads, and MySpace friends, with more being added. The REST API is great. if he can make it more intuitive it has the possibility to be to online directories what wikipedia is to online encyclopedias. there's a lot of fun stuff there, look at the exploding thumb linkroll widget that i popped into a test blog
HERE
@Rickdog,no, I haven't even heard of tagooga! But, it sounds really interesting, so I will take a look at it...hopefully if I get time today.
May I ask what made you go with Ma.gnolia vs. BlinkList? We are always hard at work on making our service better and better and I would greatly appreciate your feedback.
@Mike, In all fairness, I have not tried BlinkList. It was brought to my attention a few days before your comment! I have been looking at it, and have an account. So, I will do a comparison to Ma.gnolia. What I have found so far that I like...the way it displays the links on a page. This seems faster than Ma.gnolia. I absolutely love the cloud and the fact I can display it on my blog. I will be looking into that, and it may be the deal breaker. I haven't looked much further...my time is getting away from me lately, but I will get into the goodies of BlinkList as time permits. Does it save the page as Ma.gnolia does, even if the page goes down? That is a feature that I like. Another feature Ma.gnolia has is 'Ma.gnolia Roots' which I find handy and fun, with the little badge displaying the number of times that page has been marked on your site. And, last, but not least, I love the easy feel of Ma.gnolia. The layout is easy on the eyes. BlinkList is close, but doesn't quite hit the "Zen-ness" of Ma.gnolia. I will look at them both, and decide which features are more important to me. I do feel that BlinkList is in the same ballpark as Ma.gnolia. It will be close.
Hey annie,
I guess this icon will look better instead of text in bookmark bar for "Ma.gnolia"
check this http://ma.gnolia.com/favicon.ico
Thanks
Ameet
http://www.amdou.blogspot.com
@ameet,it does look much better!
I have compiled a list of some do follow social bookmarking sites.
www.totagit.com
www.wigleytagz.com
www.buzztagz.com
www.socialblink.com
www.youtagz.com
hey guys i have listed one social bookmarking page.click there and enjoy the site.
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gomez
Social Bookmarking
Social bookmarking is a powerful tool in promoting a website. But going through all of those social bookmarking sites is very time consuming and downloading all toolbars is madness. That is where SocialMarker.com comes in, the free service designed to reduce the time and effort needed to socially bookmark a website. It can help you spread a link on 47 of the best social bookmarking sites in under 15 minutes. It helps you get a lot of backlinks. It helps you increase your traffic. Your link gets indexed by Google in a matter of minutes.
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Cladia
Social Bookmarking
This is a very nice and interesting post which convey lot of useful information.
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lauran
Social Bookmarking
Hi,
Social bookmarking is a powerful tool in promoting a website,and I have listed one social bookmarking page,It helps you get a lot of back links. It helps you increase your traffic. Your link gets indexed by Google in a matter of minutes.
Shareefa
social bookmarking
These are new bookmarking sites
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http://mac-file-recovery.corank.com/
http://spread.corank.com/
http://distribute.corank.com/
http://find.corank.com/
http://friendsdesk.spruz.com/
if you want list of 700+ SBS then read: http://exploretheseoworld.blogspot.com/
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