There are a number of Web sites that let you post your bookmarks and then retrieve them using the Web. They are "social" because others with accounts at these sites can view your bookmarks.
It's getting more and more interesting. These sites provide a nice service that's been available for awhile, but adding the social connections make them all the more enticing. It's pretty neat to see that other folks are bookmarking the same sites as you are, especially if it gives you a little boost to know you're dealing with information that interests others as well. The other aspect s that you can view the public bookmark lists of others, and that leads to resource discovery and social interaction. What could be better than that? :-) It's all part of something great that's happening, and what exactly that is still has to be determined, IMO.
OK. Here's a list of three of these types of sites:
del.icio.us - "» del.icio.us is a social bookmarks manager. It allows you to easily add sites you like to your personal collection of links, to categorize those sites with keywords, and to share your collection not only between your own browsers and machines, but also with others." del.icio.us About
Connotea - "Connotea is a place to keep links to the articles you read and the websites you use, and a place to find them again. It is also a place where you can discover new articles and websites through sharing your links with other users." - connotea: about
CiteULike - "CiteULike is a free service to help academics to share, store, and organise the academic papers they are reading. When you see a paper on the web that interests you, you can click one button and have it added to your personal library. CiteULike automatically extracts the citation details, so there's no need to type them in yourself. It all works from within your web browser. There's no need to install any special software. " -
CiteULike: A free online service to organize your academic papers
Still it's never been easy to get people to use bookmarks regularly. Some of us are collectors and see the value of saving the collection for future use. To some, organizing bookmarks is too much to deal with.