Delicious and Diigo: Differ in What It Means to Be “Social”

Andy Brudtkuhlhas has a nice post, 6 Reasons Diigo is Better Than Delicious. In the post, one of the reasons he cites for Diigo’s being better is its social aspects:

Diigo has an extra level of social networking that Delicious does not provide – at least not in a usable manner. You can connect with people that have similar interests based on what you tag.

I’ve been playing with them a bit. Here’s an initial impression I have of how “social” works in the two bookmarking services:

• Diigo uses content to find people
• Delicious uses people to find content

Delicious, an original web 2.0 company, still has “user-generated” as its core raison d’être. Diigo has the later-stage web 2.0 philosophy of being a “social network”.

Diigo: Social Is as Social Does

Diigo has been built to find people based on common bookmark and tag interests. It has social network features throughout:

1. Finding people on Diigo is much easier than on Delicious
2. Diigo generates user matches based on tag and bookmark compatibility
3. User profiles
4. You can see who has visited your profile page
5. You can comment on the bookmarks of others
6. You can share bookmarks with specific users

Networking on Diigo Is Easier

A basic function – finding other users – is much easier on Diigo than on Delicious. The graphic below shows the results of a search for my name:

On Delicious, you have to know someone’s Delicious handle. On Diigo, you can use a person’s regular name. Diigo’s approach is more like that of today’s various social networks:

Social networks make finding users easy. So does Diigo. Delicious doesn’t.

Diigo Social Recommendations

Diigo attempts to match you to others based on common bookmarks and tags. As the graphic below shows, it’s not exactly Toluu-like in its matching.

Levels of compatibility at 2% and 3% don’t quite inspire clicks for further investigation. Social recommendations are a work-in-progress at Diigo. Delicious doesn’t do recommendations.

Diigo User Profiles

For each link, Diigo provides a user profile of everyone who bookmarked the link:

So when you check out others who bookmarked something you like, you can quickly determine if they are someone to whom you want to subscribe. Delicious also lets you look at someone’s activity, but you have to click on their handle to see their page. There’s no profile provided on the list of users who bookmarked a link.

Diigo Visitors Info, Commenting, Bookmark Sharing

I’ll skip the screen shots for these Diigo functions. But here’s how they foster social networking:

• Who visited my profile? Potential matches. Also lets you know when your social network paid your bookmarks a visit.
• Commenting. Commenting enables discussion with others. Socializing.
• Bookmark sharing. You can call out specific users with whom to share a bookmark. Very social.

Delicious Has More of a Crowdsource Feel

Where Diigo is social, Delicious emphasizes the interests of all users. What are people finding interesting. That’s not to say it doesn’t have social network aspects. On Delicious, you can:

• Add users to your network
• View your network’s bookmarks
• Become a ‘fan’ of someone

But Delicious pretty much stops there on the social aspects. The rest of Delicious is centered around bringing order to the huge volume of crowdsourced bookmarks.

Delicious: Who Bookmarked That Link When?

The new Delicious has a really cool timeline that shows who bookmarked a given link when:

That timeline is a thing of beauty. Users, dates, tags, notes. Where Diigo wants to get you socializing around a bookmark, Delicious wants to provide you with information about how a link fared with the public at large.

As mentioned above in the Diigo user profile section, Delicious doesn’t provide user profiles in this listing.

Wrapping It Up

The new Delicious continues its mission of organizing a massive number of user-generated bookmarks and tags. It looks cleaner, and I like the way information is presented. Information organized by an army of user librarians. “Social” in this context means your bookmarks and tags are exposed to others, and you can find related content based on what others are bookmarking and tagging. People are the basis for discovering content.

Diigo wants people to interact via common interests in content. It has a lot of social network hooks. “Social” in this context means establishing and building relationships with others. Content is the basis for finding people.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the different approaches of Delicious and Diigo. And you can find me on both services:

• Delicious: delicious.com/bhc3
• Diigo: www.diigo.com/profile/hutchcarpenter

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