Tag: social bookmarking

Hosting social bookmarks

While I recognize the quality of the free or inexpensive social services I can access, I prefer when possible to host services from a server that I control. If you want to develop insights into how technology and specific services work, doing it yourself really gives you a closer look.

Some time ago, I operated a social bookmarking service using open source software called Scuttle. I modified the php code of Scuttle to provide some additional services – allowing users to promote sites they found useful, listing sites by total value to users. Hacking open code is certainly part of the way I learn.

I began to have difficulties with Scuttle and I never figured out if it was because of the code I added or limitations in the original code. There is a problem with MySQL called sql injection. Code included with invited input can cause problems that coder does not intend. This seems to be what happened and while I investigated how to clean up the problem I failed to prevent it completely. It seemed my site was on a list of vulnerable sites somewhere and problems became more frequent. I eventually removed Scuttle from the server.

I am trying it again. This time I am using open source bookmarking software named Shaarli (share links). The software does not use a database backend so this will eliminate the problem I encountered with Scuttle.

shaarli

My intent is to develop an online source of educational resources. I “seeded” the site using the links I have stored in my Diigo account and plan to add mostly content-specific links as I find them. Take a look at Grabe Bookmarks.

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Sharing Google Bookmarks

I am not looking for a new social bookmarking tool. I use Diigo and once you invest for a period of time in a specific service making a change, even to a better service, is a tough choice. However, I read a recent description of changes made to the Google bookmarking system (Free Technology for Teachers) that peaked my interest so here is a brief description another new and useful service from Google. The new feature allows the assignment of bookmarks to lists that can be shared or kept private. It should take but a moment to see how this flexibility might be useful for teachers.

Rather than explaining the entire bookmarking system, I will focus mainly on the new list feature. But briefly, if you have a Google account, you can either add a bookmarklet or a Google Toolbar to your browser (Google instructions). The difference is pretty much whether the bookmark service is accessed from an icon that appears as part of your generic browser toolbar or appears as part of specialized Google toolbar offering additional services see below.

Selecting the bookmark icon from the menubar (either form) allows the current page to be bookmarked (stored by Google in contrasted to being stored by the browser as would be the case with browser bookmarking systems). The immediate advantage of off-site bookmarking is access from other browsers and computers.

Now when storing a bookmark, you have the option of also assigning the bookmark to a list. Lists are generated (see below) and then bookmarks are assigned to lists.

From the list of bookmarks, select a bookmark (checkbox to left of bookmark)

The public view of this list is now available.

Powered by ScribeFire.

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NECC CatchUp

One nice thing about NECC is that many presentations are available after the convention has ended. If this opportunity is new to you, you can locate these resources at http://www.kzowebcasting.com/necc/.

I have been taking advantage of this opportunity for the last several days. Today I watched Chris Dede and colleague describe Edtags. Edtags is a social bookmarking site for educators. The primary focus is on tagged links to educational content, but some additional services are available.

I have operated my own bookmarking site for several years. It made sense to me to create a core of focused educational resources for a target audience and then allow this audience to expand this list. My site began as a resource to extend our books, but I have expanded the purpose to include resources of more general educational value. My site and the Harvard site are both built on an open source project named Scuttle and we have each modified the open source resources to extend services.

I would recommend the NECC session available through the link above as a way to understand some of the key ideas behind these sites and what makes them different from general purpose bookmarking sites.

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Andy Carvin Describes Social Bookmarking

A blog post by Andy Carvin describing social bookmarking with a specific emphasis on del.icio.us has been linked from several of the blog sites I follow. Andy has a great writing style and this is a very nice summary of the benefits of social bookmarking and del.icio.us.

I also direct your attention to my own efforts (podcast version) to explain this same category of Internet tool.

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