What are social community sites? Basically, these are sites that allow users to post their favorite sites, stories, images, and videos, using tags (or keywords) to categorize and organize them. Other users can take these bookmarks and add them to their own collection or share them with even more users.
Many sites also have an integrated voting system that rates links according to how many people are viewing them at any given time, moving up and down in popularity. In this article, we’ll run through the top three social bookmarking sites on the Web – sites that offer vibrant community, a wide variety of data across multiple genres, and are a pertinent source of information. These are incredibly useful sites for not only keeping track of what’s currently popular online, but also great sources for information you might not have been able to find otherwise.
Reddit is a social bookmarking Web site. you register a username and password, and then start submitting and sharing your bookmarks. Reddit users are encouraged to vote on the links and stories that they feel are deserving of being in the top dog spot: it’s kind of a popularity contest, so to speak.
Redditors vote on which stories and discussions are important. the hottest stories rise to the top, while cooler stories sink.Comments can be posted on every story on Reddit. Comments add information, context, and humor. Anyone can create a community (called “subreddits”). Each subreddit is independent and moderated by a team of volunteers.
How does Reddit work?
Not only can you use Reddit to share and discover new Web sites, you can also explore the Reddit subnetworks, called subReddits. Basically, these are channels of particular topics such as Science, Programming, and all sorts of other channels.
Why should you use Reddit?
Reddit is a fantastic source of interesting information on pretty much any topic you might be interested in, as well as discovering Web sites that are off the beaten path. Users will find that Reddit’s user base has very eclectic tastes and will almost always find something that is well worth a return visit to find even more great resources.
Digg
Digg is social bookmarking and social networking. Anyone can submit a Digg (site), and then anyone can comment on those same Diggs. One of the most interesting feature of Digg has to actually be the comments on the sites and stories, since the Digg community is not shy about letting folks know how they feel about a particular Digg. More about this intriguing site:
“Digg does curation: building products that make life smoother, simpler, and smarter. Re-founded in 2012, Digg now provides the most relevant and compelling content to millions of users a month. Using proprietary data sources and a crack editorial team, we cut through the clutter of the Internet and make sense of the noise so you don’t have to. Digg has everything you’ll see later, now.”
Stumbleupon
The beauty of StumbleUpon, to my mind: you are able to take advantage of a vast network of dedicated Web searchers who are finding utterly brilliant sites and sharing them with you. I do have to warn you, though – StumbleUpon is an incredibly addicting way to search the Web. I found myself up till 1:30 AM one weekend, blearily clicking the Stumble! Button over and over again, because the quality of the sites are just so amazing; you just keep on coming across stuff that instantly merits a bookmark of your own. More about this online community:
“We help you easily discover new and interesting stuff on the Web. Tell us what you like, and we’ll introduce you to amazing web pages, videos, photos and more that you wouldn’t have found on your own.
As you Stumble through great web pages, tell us whether you Like or Dislike our recommendations so we can show you more of what’s best for you. We’ll show you web pages based on that feedback as well as what similar Stumblers and the people you follow have Liked or Disliked.
Our members have given us some pretty great compliments in the past, including describing us as “the entire Internet, all in one place,” ”an epic journey” and “a map to an adventure you wouldn’t otherwise have found out about.”