I’ve got a flickr account and a del.icio.us account too! I love the new “social” trend. Great stuff we can tag and search tons of stuff in an easy and convenient way.
Since I’m a happy Pluck user, I’ve recently discovered another kind of service spawned not so long ago by the same folks…
What is Shadows?
Shadows is a free, social bookmarking community created by you and other Shadows users. With Shadows, you can create your own collection of web pages, complete with tags (keywords for easy searching), comments (to remember why you saved it and to share with others) and ratings (to really show others how you feel about page).Shadows lets you rediscover parts of the web you may have visited but can’t remember. You can also discover new people who share your interests and opinions, and places or things that you wouldn’t find using standard search tools. As members tag, rate and discuss their favorite web pages and share this information, all the Shadows community members benefit.
What are Social Bookmarks?
A social bookmark is a bookmark (often called “favorites” in your browser) you can share with others. With Shadows, social bookmarking consists of tagging web pages, and allowing other Shadows users to view your tags and tagged pages (or “bookmarks”). If you prefer not to share your tags, you can easily make them private.Why is discovery different from search?
Search is great for finding very specific things. If you are looking for a certain toner cartridge for your printer, traditional search is the way to go. If you know which model car you want to research before a purchase, search will help you get the information you need. Most people use search when they know the kind of information they want, but don’t know where to get it.Discovery lets you find related things that you might not have been looking for specifically. You searched and found details (number of pages, compatibility, etc.) about that toner cartridge you needed. Using Shadows for discovery might help you find information on cartridge recycling to help the environment, a goal you strongly support. You might also discover that someone has rated the vendor you are considering for your purchase.
Discovery takes advantage of data like tags, comments and ratings that have been added to a web page. This additional information expands the relationship between people, places and things that can be found online. With people adding to the information in Shadows, the possibilities for even more interesting, fun and useful discovery keeps growing.
Is it another del.icio.us clone? Is it a digg clone? Is it a BlinkList clone? Don’t know yet… but I’ll find out soon. If you tried it, please let me know your impressions!
Nice we’re seeing so many tools and services for information retrieval… let’s hope they just don’t end up overlapping themselves with common features and interfaces…