Ever seen these little symbols at the bottom of an article or blog post? Or clicked the “share” button on a webpage thinking you’re going to be able to email to a friend only to be offered a cacophony of little mini-clipart pics instead of a simple form and wondered What are these little gremlins invading the web?

Not ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics but "common" social bookmarks

Welcome to the world of Social Bookmarking – a suite of very useful services, which are largely under-utilised, both by readers, and contributors on the web.

Ok so what is Social Bookmarking?

In a nutshell - Social bookmarking is a method for internet users to store, organize, manage and search bookmarks of web pages using tags.

Essentially it’s an online version of the bookmarks button at the top of your browser or your links (bookmarks) toolbar  if you use one. But it’s more advanced than that…

But why should I bother with these social bookmarks?

1. Mobility - They’re online (in the “cloud”) so you have them wherever you go, whatever computer you use

2. Unlimited -There’s a limit to how many bookmarks you will really use in your browser - technically there isn’t (that i know of) but realistically, the 10 that are in my link menu are the ones i use all the time. the rest are largely forgotten.

3. Searchability – you are encouraged to tag bookmarks as you make them – so you can find things again easily, even if it’s months later

4. Wisdom of the crowd - you can access the pages bookmarked by other people in addition to your own giving you an easy way to find useful, pertinent information that other people recommend

There are lots of Social bookmarking sites – which to use?

There are many types of social bookmarking – each with a different use. To get you started here’s some of the most popular ones:

Delicious – the classic social bookmarking  web service for storing, sharing, and discovering webpages

Digg – a social news website where people submit links and stories, people can vote submissions up and down (and comment on them). The most popular stories appear on the homepage . Digg has grown large enough that submissions sometimes create a sudden increase of traffic to the “dugg” website – the “Digg Effect”

Reddit – like digg, is a social news website on which users can submit links to webpages they recommend. Other users may then vote the posted links up or down, the most popular appear on the Reddit homepage.

Bookmark to