Social Bookmarking versus Social News
Is there a fundamental difference between sites like del.icio.us and digg?
They are often lumped together in the same category of social bookmarking. However, del.icio.us, spurl and their cousins are true social bookmarking services. Sites like Digg and Newsvine are more social news services.
Socialbookmarking provides benefits for the bookmarker and for the community of bookmarkers. When an item is bookmarked, I can tag and categorize it anyway I want. I can use my bookmarks for my own personal reference whether I care about the social aspect of it or not. The community gets to see my bookmarks, can find new and interesting sites/pages for themselves that they can then add to their bookmarks. The more an item is bookmarked the more “authority” it seems to carry.
Social News tends to focus namely on that: news. The news changes by the hour if not by the minute. Social News sites such as Digg tend to primarily serve the community with little emphasis on the actual digger. That to me is the largest difference. At least in social bookmarking I have a mechanism that can organize my information in a way that is meaningful to me.
I prefer getting my news either from the major news sites or from blogs. If I want to read up on what is going on with technology, I would rather pop over to a technology website like Wired, than visit Digg. Digg in some ways is no different than Wired. Both have a relatively small editorial and writing staff. When I read Wired, I get the perspective of a small group of people. When I read Digg I read the choices of a small group of people. In reality, Digg is not the social news of THE community but “a” community.
While “dugg” items tend to carry “authority” as in bookmarking services, these are truly news stories as opposed to sites I would want to visit again and often. Maybe it just me, but I simply bookmark items that 1) are a helpful resource 2) say something important I want to read again or 3) something I would want to recommend. Of the 15 items at the top of the Digg technology topic right, 13 are news items. In a week, most won’t matter. Whereas I find items that get bookmarked via del.icio.us and others tend to have a lasting permanence of importance.
For me, I don’t find Digg to be a tool that helps me keep my information organized. Nor do I find that it is worth my time to find out what is Hot this second. While I do visit del.icio.us to find out what people are bookmarking, more often than not I am using it to organize my links. Which, by the way, they could still go a long way in improving.
[tags]bookmarking, social+bookmarking, digg, newsvine[/tags]
Posted by Paul Flyer on Friday, August 25th, 2006 in Social Bookmarking
Calvin Tang Says:
August 25th, 2006 at 6:15 pm
In addition to the things you’ve mentioned, Newsvine is further separated from the social bookmarking services you mentioned (and Digg) by the following rather significant distinctions:
- Content is fully hosted on Newsvine (AP, ESPN, New Scientist), in addition to the links that lead to external sites/articles.
- Newsvine users publish original articles, housed in their own columns.
You’re right in your analysis that the true social bookmarking services are built solely to help you keep your stuff organized. At Newsvine, we do allow you to organize your content, but that is not the primary purpose of the service. We aim to provide the best place to read, write and influence the news.
heffa Says:
August 26th, 2006 at 1:30 am
I think you might be a bit confused, reddit is a social news site. But it’s better than digg because reddit learns from your votes and can recommend links personalized for you.
Paul Flyer Says:
August 28th, 2006 at 9:00 am
Calvin,
Thanks for the comment. I plan on writing something solely on Newsvine in the future.
While my post turned into more of a rant than I had intended it to be, my goal was to try and differentiate these sites into their correct categories.
Too often all the social linking kind of sites are lumped under “social bookmarking”. This is unfortunate for users who begin to think all these sites are the same and offer the same services, which they clearly do not. It is unfortunate for sites like Digg and Newsvine, because they lose some of their market appeal when they are described in these general terms.
Paul
Paul Flyer Says:
August 28th, 2006 at 9:04 am
Heffa,
You are correct. Reddit is more about news than bookmarking. I have changed the post to remove any confusion. Reddit deserves its own post to discuss how it is unique.
Paul