A Recap of Social Bookmarking

Written by Luyi Chen on February 13, 2007
Tags:, , ,

Social BookmarkingIn our previous Baidu Bookmarking review post, we have said that bookmarking is the second most important service. Not only to single user, but also to the whole Web2.0 world this is the case. The concept of tagging has risen up into everyone’s mind with the popularity of social bookmarking. Now tagging has become a typical component of Web2.0 services, because of its ability to link people together, thus to build the community.

Recently we have come across quite a lot of social bookmarking services. To be frankly, they are mostly similar to each other. So instead of introducing them one by one, we think it’s better to come up with a single post to share some thoughts on the whole market.

To be a successful bookmarking service, you should either launch early, as early as when nobody knows what tag means. If you don’t launch early enough, large companies will enter into the market with advantage of existing user base. As an independent bookmarking service, if you don’t have really unique features, then you are in trouble. Unique features don’t really mean innovative technologies, but features targeting a very unique group of people. Following are some of these groups:

  1. Very basic users: They are as basic as not able to remember the URL of Google. What they really need is a startpage. Basic users mostly bookmark homepage of the sites, while advanced users mainly bookmark permlink of articles. Recently QQ launched their bookmarking services. Today I took a look at their supporting forum, and found that a main request is to integrate the service with QQ, the instant messenger client. why do they omit browser add-ons, but request such a feature? Because the first application they launch everyday is the instant messenger, which has become their starting point of the network. To prepare a collection page where they can put their most frequently used websites is a good idea.

  2. Advanced Link Blog: Gootou is an example that lets users to maintain links into collection list. This is a way for users to show their expertise or unique habits. For other just begin to research on some topics, these lists probably are good starting points.
  3. Topic focused collaborative news clipping: We haven’t found a good service in the market. This kind of service is more useful to small groups than to the public.
  4. Social search: The most typical service is Baidu Bookmarking. Bbmao is also exploring this field, but it’s hard for them to get attention from the masses.
  5. Vertical bookmarking: Service like Buykee and Douban including lots of music playlist sharing services are all within this category.

Above mentioned points are those will really affect user’s choices of services. Other features like inline multimedia player, webpage screening thumbnail are good to have but not influential features. As to folder or tag, we think this is not important, as long as they can make users adapt to the interface. But you had better tell users in your help documents. Baidu Bookmarking looks like using tags, but they tuned out to be folders.

Having a clear mind of targeting users in the beginning is better than saying you would add new features in the future. People don’t stay if they think this is not for them after the first glance. The most useless example in this market is trying to build a news portal, treating users as free social editors.

The last, what about recommendation feature? This is yet another good to have but not the first objective you should pursue. To users, selecting the right community to stay with is more important. In the long run, you will finally benefit from social wisdom.

3 Responses to “A Recap of Social Bookmarking”

  1. xiaohan on February 13th, 2007 9:48 pm

    very interesting market!

  2. social bookmarking in china at the Navigator on February 14th, 2007 1:03 pm

    [...] The ever-resourceful China Web 2.0 Review offers some useful insight into social bookmarking in China. To be a successful bookmarking service, you should either launch early, as early as when nobody knows what tag means. If you don’t launch early enough, large companies will enter into the market with advantage of existing user base. As an independent bookmarking service, if you don’t have really unique features, then you are in trouble. Unique features don’t really mean innovative technologies, but features targeting a very unique group of people. [...]

  3. China Web2.0 Review » » Youtie: Let’s Keep In Touch By Sharing Funny Pages on June 7th, 2007 10:20 am

    [...] Related Posts Interviewing Mister Wong: Social Bookmarking from GermanyReport Said Only 2.3% Chinese Internet Users Use TagsA Recap of Social BookmarkingIn-depth review of Baidu Bookmark serviceBaidu To Enter Social Bookmarking MarketCrowed Market of Social Bookmarking in China [...]

Post a comment