I started using Delicious again after a one-year hiatus. I am impressed with the new interface. At first, I though they just reskinned the old design – lipstick on a pig, if we are still allowed to use that phrase. After using it for a week, I see that they have made a number of subtle but crucial changes to the user interface.

Today, I am writing about the tagging interface, which is my favorite of these changes. I really like the new interface. I offer some tips on using it effectively, and some recommendations to the design team on further improvements. Continue reading »

When I left Delicious a year ago, I had two simple reasons. First, Delicious was painfully stupidly slow. Second, Delicious had obviously been abandoned by its developers, since it remained stagnant for the previous year despite all the problems. So I moved over to Ma.gnolia which was bright, speedy and engaged with their community. I liked Ma.gnolia, I really did. It had some slick innovative features, like topical user groups. But its tag management was always weak and I’ve got a ton of tags to manage.

Recently Delicious underwent a significant redesign, so I gave them another shot. The UI and visual design have finally been improved. More importantly, Delicious runs quickly again. This improvement made a huge difference in my re-introduction. Importing my bookmarks ran quickly and smoothly. So far, I am pleased. I will write again after I have used it for a while.

To celebrate, I created this lovely tag cloud. Those of you who know me know I think tag clouds are useless. I was wrong: they make great art! Click the image to see the tool I made it with.

I taught a class on tagging for Vera Rhoads at the University of Maryland Graduate School back in 2006. It was an introductory-level presentation, aimed at covering the basics. Last year, I presented a similar presentation on classification, tagging and search. Continue reading »

I have given versions of this information retrieval talk for five or six semesters at Thom Haller’s USDA Graduate School class on Information Architecture. I always enjoy the class, since Thom attracts folks with an interesting range of experience. Continue reading »

I use del.icio.us to archive the things I’ve read for later retrieval or for sharing. I use it to help manage to torrent of information coming across my desk (or phone) through email and RSS. It acts like a sort of supplementary memory so can I focus on other things. And on the whole, I have been pretty happy with del.icio.us. It’s always been slow and its interface has always been poor. But it had a number of advanced and rewarding features that made it the only viable option for social bookmarking (more on this later). I tried a handful of other products over the last few years and I wasn’t impressed with any of them – certainly not impressed enough to go through the hassle of moving services. Until now.

I tried Ma.gnolia at least a year ago. Nobody was on it. It was basically a pretty del.icio.us without any substantive new features or interaction improvements over its competitor. It was not something I would switch to. At the time Del.icio.us was still the ugly king of bookmarking. Well, things have changed a bit in the intervening months and my assessment has changed along with them. Ma.gnolia is pretty cool after all and I have made the switch. Continue reading »