Ultimate Guide to Using Del.icio.us

What is Del.icio.us? Del.icio.us is a social bookmarking website, owned by Yahoo!, that allows you to store your website bookmarks online. The benefits of this are numerous, but most importantly, it gives you access to your bookmarks from any computer with internet access. When a bookmark is created on Del.icio.us, you simply enter a description, any notes you want to leave for yourself, and then you have the option of assigning tags or keywords to the bookmark. Assigning tags or keywords to your bookmarks will help when you start to acquire a lot of bookmarks and begin searching your bookmarks using the Del.icio.us Search feature.

What makes this website social? Del.icio.us not only allows you to store your favorite links, but you also get access to the links everyone else has stored on Del.icio.us. You can search their website for other great links you may have missed. Obviously the more times a link is bookmarked, the better the bookmark will likely be; therefore, Del.icio.us added a Most Popular section which tracks bookmarks saved so you can see what the most bookmarked stuff is out there. If you are one of those people that needs to know everything first, you can also monitor their Most Recent section, which shows the most recently tagged bookmarks. If you have a feed reader, you can always get any page imported into your feed reader by going to the bottom of any page and clicking the orange RSS button, then throwing the feed into your feed reader.

How do I get an account? First thing you gotta do is register for your Del.icio.us account. It’s free and last I checked, an E-mail address isn’t even required! Now, before you start using Del.icio.us, you’ll want to check out some of the add-ons and bookmarklets that are available for your web browser or desktop.

Integrate Del.icio.us into your Web Browser

• Official Del.icio.us Firefox Extension - This extension will add a Tag This! and My Del.icio.us button to your Firefox web browser.
• Official Del.icio.us Firefox Search Plugin - Adds a Search Del.icio.us option to your Firefox search bar.
• Foxylicious - Firefox extension that syncs your Del.icio.us bookmarks with your web browsers bookmarks.
• Official Del.icio.us Internet Explorer Extension - This extension will add a Tag This! and My Del.icio.us button to your Internet Explorer web browser.
• Opera Browser Buttons - Installs custom Del.icio.us buttons into your Opera web browser.
• Delicious2Safari - Imports your bookmarks from Del.icio.us into your Safari web browser.

Integrate Del.icio.us into your Operating System/Desktop

• Cloud.icio.us - MAC OS X dashboard widget that adds a Del.icio.us tag cloud to your desktop.
• Del.icio.usTray - Sits in Windows system tray and provides instant access to your Del.icio.us account.
• Dashilicious - Dashboard widget that allows you to post to Del.icio.us directly. It is optimized for Safari users and NetNewsWire.

I’m registered and I’ve got my bookmarklets, where do I begin? Del.icio.us gives you the option of Importing/Exporting your Bookmarks in the Settings panel. To import your bookmarks, go to the bookmark section of your Settings panel and click on Import/Upload. This will import your existing bookmarks. Once you’ve got everything imported, hit the Internet full speed and begin bookmarking! Don’t worry, you can’t overdue it. As mentioned above, if you find your bookmark collection is getting to large to manage, you can use the Del.icio.us Search feature to search for the bookmark you are looking for. You can also delete bookmarks if you no longer want them. Just make sure you tag your posts with the terms you would mostly likely use in your search so it can easily be found at a later date when needed.

Once you’ve got your bookmarks the way you like them, check out the Del.icio.us Inbox feature, which can be found at http://del.icio.us/inbox/{username}. Click the Edit Inbox link on the right hand sidebar. This will allow you to subscribe to a particular tag you want to track, as well as a particular Del.icio.us user that has similar interests. If you have a friend or know someone that uses Del.icio.us and you want access to their bookmarks, simply type their username here and click Subscribe. You can also subscribe to multiple tags if you want to get more specific. Just like Technorati, you need to add an addition symbol in between multiple tags, otherwise they will be considered seperate tags. For example, if you wanted to track Google Calendar stuff, instead of typing a general tag like Google, you would type Google+Calendar into the Inbox Tag field and click Subscribe. Once you’ve got your inbox tracking everything you want it to, go to the bottom of the page and click the orange RSS button, which will provide a feed that you can throw into your feed reader for easy updates!

Blogging Features

Ever wonder who is talking about your blog? You can use the Del.icio.us Check URL feature to see who is talking about your website using Del.icio.us. Here are some other nice blogging features Del.icio.us offers:

• Network Badges - This feature allows you to place a Network badge on your website, allowing you to display your Del.icio.us username, network count, and fan count. Once you’ve selected what you want to display, it will generate javascript code to place on your website, giving your readers full access to your bookmarks!
• Linkrolls - This feature allows you to have your Del.icio.us bookmarks displayed on your website’s sidebar. You determine the size and look of it, then paste the javascript code on to your website.
• Tagrolls - This feature allows you to have your Del.icio.us tags displayed on your website’s sidebar. You determine the size and look of it, then paste the javascript code on to your website.
• Daily Blog Posting - This feature allows you to post daily links to your website. If you don’t bookmark anything that day, nothing will be posted on your website for that day. This has several benefits, giving your readers access to useful websites, but it also serves as a backup for your bookmarks on your website.

If you’re interested in adding Daily Links to your blog, here is how to go about it:

Once you’ve set up your Del.icio.us account, go to the upper right corner and click on Settings. Under the experimental column on the right side of the screen, you will find an option called Daily Blog Posting. You’ll want to click Add a New Thingy. Here is the information needed to create Daily Blog Posting for your site:

• Under job_name put the title you would like to use. Many people simply use “Links” or “Daily Links.”
• Under out_name enter your log in name.
• Under out_pass enter your blog password.
• Under out_url you will need to place the following code, depending on which blogging service you use:
  • Wordpress - http://blogname/ xml rpc. php (remove spaces)
  • Typepad - http://www.typepad.com/t/api
  • Movable Type - http://blogname/ mt-xml rpc. cgi (remove spaces)
  • Blogger - Currently there is no out_url (confirmed)
• Under out_time you will want to place the GMT time each day you want to have your post made. For those in the United States, a zero is 8 PM EST, 5 PM PST (midnight GMT).
• Under out_blog_id you place your blog’s ID number. In typepad, this can be found by clicking on the manage link. It should appear in the address menu link this: http://www.typepad.com/t/app/weblog/manage?blog_id=[Blog ID Number]
• Under out_cat_id this is where you place the category you want your post to be under (if applicable).

Hit Submit Query and your done!!

Adding Del.icio.us Search to your Blog

A few people have inquired about how to make a Del.icio.us Search box for their blog’s sidebar. In order to make this, I simply took a look at the source code on the Del.icio.us Search page and adjusted the URL and manipulated the code a bit to fit in a sidebar the way I wanted it to look. Here is the code:

<!-- SiteSearch Del.icio.us -->
<center><form method="get" action="http://del.icio.us/search/" id="searchform" onSubmit="doSearchType(); return true;"> <input type="hidden" name="fr" id="searchfr" value="del_icio_us"/> <p><input name="p" value="" type="text" size="22"> <input type="submit" value="Search Del.icio.us"></p></form></center>
<!-- SiteSearch Del.icio.us -->

It’s important to note that the search uses the logged in users information, so if you search for a particular tag, it will show you any tags you have saved under your name, and also any other ones. If you would prefer to have a select box on your website that the user can choose between Your Bookmarks, Del.icio.us, or World Wide Web, then you will want to use a slightly modified version:

<!-- SiteSearch Del.icio.us -->
<center><form method="get" action="http://del.icio.us/search/" id="searchform" onSubmit="doSearchType(); return true;"> <input type="hidden" name="fr" id="searchfr" value="del_icio_us"/> <p><input name="p" value="" type="text" size="22"> <select id="searchtype" name="type"> <option value="user" >Your Bookmarks</option> <option value="all" selected="selected">Del.icio.us</option> <option value="web" >World Wide Web</option></select> <input type="submit" value="Search Del.icio.us"></p></form></center>
<!-- SiteSearch Del.icio.us -->

This will add a select box, giving the searcher more options.

Does Del.icio.us have a blog? It is always important to give your business to companies that blog, because then you have direct access to communicate with that company. Del.icio.us is no exception, keeping their users up to date with the Official Del.icio.us Blog.

What are the downsides to Del.icio.us? Well, there are only three downsides in my opinion. The major flaw I see is the lack of competition. There are numerous social bookmarking websites, but none that have truly taken off like Del.icio.us has. The closest thing to a true competitor was Yahoo’s MyWeb service (now Yahoo! MyWeb2). However, shortly after launching their MyWeb service, Yahoo actually acquired Del.icio.us, giving them a virtual monopoly in the social bookmarking market. In my opinion, this has caused a lack of urgency in improvements to their services, which brings me to my other two complaints. The user interface is awful and sometimes the navigation can be tricky. They also have a very slow customer service turn around time if you run into a problem (took almost two months for me to get a response to an issue I was having). I think competition would go a long way towards fixing both of these flaws.

So there you have it! That is everything you should need to know to get the most out of Del.icio.us. I will be adding quality links as I find them, so if you know of any I have missed, please leave a comment below and they will be added.