Delicious evaluation

The main advantage for creating bookmarks on Delicious is so that they can be accessed on any computer that connects to the Internet. A good idea in theory, but for myself I find other methods more useful.

Actually, last year I experimented a bit with Delicious when I was collecting material for a university research paper I was writing. I did not find storing links on Delicious that helpful for the following reasons.

• Speed. When I am looking for particular information or a specific web site I am more likely to use a search engine first. I get better hits in faster time.


• Limited Resources. Search engines index millions of web sites, meaning I have a better chance of finding what I need from a search engine, than on the small number of web sites collected on Delicious.


• Tagging Limitations. One of the pitfalls of using Delicious is that you are reliant on the bookmarker's tagging abilities. Again it is a numbers game. The less tagging terms used (or less useful tagging terms used) the less likely I'll be able to find the exact site I need.

What I ended up doing last year instead was copy the information I needed from the web page into a Word document, added a bibliographic link, and then saved the document to a USB stick. If I needed to access the web site again, I had the URL in my Word document.

Oh, one more pitfall to using Delicious:

• Use It or Lose It. When I bookmark a web site on my computer, it is easily accessible no matter how old it is (unless it is so old that it no longer exists). However, with Delicious, if I forget the log-in and password I lose access to all my bookmarks. As I just discovered when I tried to sign onto the Delicious account I made last year. Then Delicious is not so delicious.