Here’s our rundown of the best social bookmarking sites 2013. Social bookmarking sites are a great way of accessing stories and information online, that you are interested in. They are also a great way of sharing these stories and articles with others.
Different to social networking sites, the best social bookmarking sites are all about content.
Digg
I’m kind of addicted to Digg. Its a simple idea, but it works.
If you’ve not been on Digg, then this it how it is set up. Digg essentially compiles the best/most interesting stories on the web, all in one place.
This being the internet, there is a slight bias towards tech stories, but it covers a broad range of topics from popular science, to big news events, to popular culture. What you do get though is interesting stories, that tend to look things from a different viewpoint.
Many Digg users appear to be upset with the owners, for changing the format of Digg. I never used the old Digg, so I can’t really comment on it, but I do use the current version at least daily.
I think the issue they have is that you basically get a front page showing the top stories, popular stories, and upcoming stories, but none of what lies beneath that. I understand the criticism, and it would be great to have more, but then does the quality get diluted?
What I think makes Digg work is the broad appeal of the featured stories. If you get all your news from traditional media outlets, then give Digg a try. It will give you a different perspective. Here’s two articles from today to get you started:
What a McDonalds burger looks like after 14 years
A prison cell sized room designed by the inmates who live in them
For my money the best social bookmarking site on the web.
One of the most popular sites on the internet, I’ve talked about Pinterest on the blog before. The way it works is that people select and pin images onto pinboards that they or others have created. These can be images they have created themselves, or ones they have found online. Pinterest lends itself well to the worlds of fashion and food in particular, and the demographic of its users is highly geared towards women. Having said that, I really like it! Rumours abound that there are several start-ups aiming to become the “pinterest for men”
You can use it for creating mood boards for say planning the decoration of a room, of you can just use it to store a series of image based links to your favourite webpages on a particular topic. We found it useful when shopping for baby stuff, because you can just pin the images of things you like, and go back to them later, without having to write them all down, or bookmark loads of web pages.
In common with seemingly every site on the internet now, you can also follow people, so that you will see anything new that they post. You can follow us at http://pinterest.com/everythingblog/
Stumbleupon
The idea behind Stumbleupon is that its a kind of personalised window on the internet. You select your interests, and it effectively suggests web pages and blog posts that you may be interested in. When you read an article you can then give it the thumbs up or thumbs down and this helps it to select future article of interest. I guess its a bit like the recommendations that come up on amazon, but articles rather than products.
It takes a little bit of getting used to, but its a great place to discover articles you otherwise wouldn’t have seen.
Again you can follow individuals, but mainly it is about following topics of interest. Its the 176th most popular site online, but has declined slightly in popularity over the last year.
I’d say its worth giving a chance, if you want to find new websites and blogs that match your interests.
You can find us on stumleupon here http://www.stumbleupon.com/lists/502439779533868176
Delicious
Delicious is a kind of hybrid of digg, facebook, stumbleupon, reddit, evernote and pinterest. There is more emphasis on networks, and linking to your friends, but its basically a tool for bookmarking articles from the web, and storing and sharing them.
Delicious isn’t quite as nicely designed as the other sites mentioned, and for that reason perhaps feels a little bit less accessible. However, it was one of the first social bookmarking sites around and its still pretty popular.
Buzzfeed
Buzzfeed is a bit like Digg, apart from the fact that it focuses more on less serious content. This site is full of the kind of stuff that gets shared on facebook.
Its full of links to image and video laden blog posts on subjects like What Dating Is Like In Your Twenties and Relive 1999 in 10 minutes.
Its definitely aimed at a younger demographic, but there are sections devoted to news, tech, politics and sport as well as celebrities, animals and entertainment.
Often a place where you can find some very off the wall stuff, and funny quirky stories.
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