Bookmarking, the act of saving a web page as a quick reference, has become a team effort in a popular activity called "social bookmarking." In social bookmarking, users bookmark web pages, categorize those web pages using keywords, called tags, and add commentary. The bookmarks are associated to the user's username and/or profile, which is visible to others, such as certain people specified by the user, groups, or the general Internet population, who in turn can search, sort, and also make comments on the bookmarked page.
How It Started
The social bookmarking concept was introduced by itList.com 
in 1996, but the idea did not catch on until early 2004 with the popularity of the social bookmarking site called del.icio.us . A host of services like Connotea , Furl and StumbleUpon made their appearance in 2005. While most services cater to the general public, some of them like Connotea focus on niches like scientific research. Currently, other popular social bookmarking sites include Digg , Technorati , and Reddit . Bloggers now use tools, like Socializer , to rank the popularity of social bookmarking sites.
Web sites, particularly those of newspapers and magazines, promote the use of social bookmarking sites due to the big gain in readership that the bookmarks generate. Such sites display the small icons or logos of social bookmarking sites next to the articles, which allow the user to quickly jump to the bookmarking service where they can save the URL and comment or blog about an article. The BBC Web site , for example, provides such a link from every one of its articles. Other sites offer a general "share this with a friend" link at the bottom of a page, such as the link after this jobs article .
(Image source: Part Time Jobs )
Social bookmarking is one of the fastest growing segments on the Internet today, and social bookmarking sites occupy five places in the top 25 user-generated content sites, as shown in the graphs below. Digg and del.icio.us are the most popular as of October 2007, with a combined total of over 300 million inbound links.
Advantages and Disadvantages
Searching for information via social bookmarking gives an advantage over traditional search engines because pages have been reviewed and categorized semantically by humans who understand the content, rather than by programming that scans the page for keywords. Results can be interesting and relevant to the user's search.
These sites, however, also open the door to corruption and collusion. Some users see social bookmarking as a way to market their own Web site by boosting their search engine ratings by tagging their web pages multiple times or using popular tags. Some social bookmarking sites have started implementing CAPTCHA mechanisms to protect against this trend. Allegations exist that social bookmarking sites promote their sponsors by giving their sites higher rankings, but this notion so far remains unproven.
A more serious problem occurs when people start bookmarking and commenting on news stories. A group of people acting in collusion can enhance the visibility of a spurious sensationalist story, leading others to bookmark it, and causing a snowball effect. As a result, news stories that may be unfounded or opinionated are spread and accepted.
Remember that sites on social bookmarking services gain status by public approval, not through verification by an authority on the subject. Before accepting information as true, research a topic from multiple sources.
Top 25 User-Generated Content Sites, September 2007 (statistical data gathered from eBizMBA )
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