Open Source Social Bookmarking Service

comforteagle writes "This past week I launched an open source social bookmarking competitor to del.icio.us - de.lirio.us. After running it for a while open to the public it appears to be running relatively bug free so this is the invitation to the Slashdot crowd. The code is entirely open and the content is cc licensed, so I'm sure it won't take too long for folks to cook up some additional tools aside from the blogging feature. For those not familiar the meme is social bookmarking, which is basically a service to share bookmarks publicly instead (or in addition to) only within your browser. There are lots of other additional benefits, but that's the gist of it. More details here and here."

Comments

...okay...

[Anonymous Coward]

So how is this an advantage over del.icio.us, exactly?

I mean, having source code to a del.icio.us like service available is nice, don't get me wrong. But I don't see how it makes del.irio.us itself any better. I'm not going to be upgrading the software on del.irio.us anytime soon.

I don't understand...

[Icarus1919]

Maybe it's just me, that's a possibility, but I don't understand people's fascination with these kinds of services. Blogging, bookmark sharing, it all seems to me like a cry for attention from other people. Blogging looks like it could be fun, but I never participated in it because it always seemed as if no one would ever particularly are about my life, and if they did, it would say more about their life than mine. For the same reason, I probably wouldn't participate in this type of service. I'm not trolling, I simply really do not see the appeal. If I wanted to keep a record of my life, I'd be much more likely to keep a private journal.

Re:I don't understand...

[Aeiri]

For me, I think (if I ever actually start doing it), I think it would be a good place to have my bookmarks. I don't care about the sharing, I just use a lot of computers and would like to be able to remember all those sites that I forget on a daily basis.

Re:I don't understand...

[earthbound kid]

We live in an age of social anomie. It's no wonder that people will do whatever is necessary to gain some recognition from the world. With shared values and public authority crumbling, people are increasingly isolated from those around them. Where once everyone in the village had a shared set of priorities, based on their shared social status, today, we are too fragmented to be able to really connect to people-- even people close to us.

There is a positive side to all this though. Though we're all so isolated from our immediate neighbors, technology allows us to form virtual communities with those who have common interests. Look at open source software or Wikipedia-- most contributors are drawn in at first by the product, but eventually become members of a community. Firefox is a fine browser, but without colorful personalities behind it like Blake and Hyatt, it would never have taken off so quickly. People identify with the leaders, feel like they have a common bond, and interact that way. Even really small and silly niches, like Mac product rumors, can spawn a community.

You have to be aware of some of this yourself though. Why post on slashdot at all, if not for the vague feeling that you're connecting with other human beings? We all long for connections, and being denied by our physical community, build virtual ones instead.

It's as simple as that.

Re:I don't understand...

[Frodo Crockett]

Del.icio.us isn't just about sharing bookmarks, it's about having all your bookmarks in one place. Use del.icio.us, and you'll never have to sync bookmarks between different browers, OSes, or machines again.

I find it quite useful to see what other people have bookmarked using the same tag. In fact, it's kind of like a human-filtered Google search. Why wade through pages of questionable search results when I can check del.icio.us and see what sites people looking for the same thing thought were worth visiting?

Also, I think your comparison to blogs is unfair. Blogs are the modern equivalent of a crappy Geocities website. Del.icio.us has more in common with Wikipedia than blogs.

Times are changing, webapps are no longer tarpits

[Paradox]

Seriously- the web is supposed to be decentralized. Why do I keep seeing all these people expecting me to put my eggs in their basket?

Ahh! You're right, but you're missing something. With RSS syndication, SOAP backends, and now swank javascript bookmarklets to instantly add stuff, del.icio.us actually makes it easier to keep your data around and get it to where it needs to be. With the increasing popularity of RSS, it turns out that data isn't really "locked up" inside webapps. Indeed, a good interface and fast RSS summaries can mean that content is more accessible once it goes into one of these services, instead of languishing on your hard drive.

I can easily make a portal page from del.icio.us, by using the rss feature combined with tags search. I can dynamically query and feed my del.icio.us bookmarks into my blog or webpage info. I can integrate them right into my browser UI with Firefox's "live bookmarks". Compare that to them sitting in a directory, statically, on my home computer.

The days where web apps are tarpits of information are slowly disappearing. Soon, apps will interoperate with each other because it provides a competitive advantage (want to move from livejournal to blogger? Blogger is going to make this as easy as possible for you, and Livejournal provides the interface because people use it for site syndication). Already, data sharing is very easy, and getting easier. It's only a matter of time before the real tipping point happens, and then the real question will be "Who has the best interface for handling my data," instead of "Who will avoid squirreling my data away in a dark hole."