8.2. Recommendations
Use social bookmarks to refine your Internet searches. Social bookmarks make it possible to perform Internet searches, as Internet search engines (e.g. Google) do. Nevertheless, the difference between them lies in the fact that social bookmarks offer resources according to those resources that were most often bookmarked or tagged by users, whereas search engines are based on quantitative criteria, such as the number of visits. For this reason, instead of using an Internet search engine by introducing some words in its search field and expecting it to find useful information in the vastness of the Internet, your search field may be significantly narrowed using social bookmarks. Besides, results will provide the most relevant information, but also the most updated information, as social bookmarks show both the newest lists added and those that are most popular (the ones that received more votes from users). Therefore, in order to easily find useful links (those that are recommended by a large number of users), you may choose a social bookmark and select the category or label that best suits the information you are trying to find.
Take the opinion of the of the community of users into account. The opinion of the community of users is very important in social bookmarking. For this reason, every time you perform a search it would be advisable to take a look at the community library related to this search, as there you will find lists created on the search term, the users that bookmarked more sites on the subjects and the user groups that were created on the subject. You may even join one of these groups, as long as they are public. You need to take into account that, for most social bookmarks, following individual users and seeing the links they bookmarked will be possible without applying for an authorization.
Install the browser extension. Many bookmarks include an option to download a browser extension, which will help manage the application in a faster, more efficient way.
Manage the privacy of the information you share. Lists or collections of favorite items that are created using social bookmarks may be shared with everybody by making them public, or else their visibility may be limited to several users by applying the corresponding privacy option.
Create notes or highlights. A very useful option in social bookmarking involves the generation and storage of notes, comments, floating notes or highlights while you read the text on the sites you visit and bookmark as favorites. These personalized text fragments will be added automatically to the user’s link library and the user will be given the choice to make them public along with the web resources shared.
Create subject-related groups or join an existing group. Social bookmarks offer the opportunity to share, through subject-related groups, information with other users who share the same interests. In order to do this, new groups may be created that may be joined by other users (either whenever they want or once they receive permission to do so, depending on the restrictions the administrator user sets on the group) or else by joining groups that already exist, if you find their subject topic interesting.
Use RSS subscriptions. If you are interested in a given subject, you may find it useful to subscribe to a given category or tag using RSS. If you do so, you will be notified automatically every time a user bookmarks a resource with that tag.