#13 De.licio.us

I think the idea of keeping one's links online is a great idea. Every few months I at least back my links up that way. I don't use public computers that much, but if I did it would be invaluable to be able to access them anywhere. As it is, I do use a personalized Google homepage, so I at least have my email, a few links, and my RSS feeds able to be accessed from anywhere.

I don't so much like the public part of it - meaning, anyone can see what you have linked. Luckily you don't have to make any of your links public - and I haven't. I do realize that this means I'm missing out on contributing all of my tagging info and the numbers of what pages I have linked to the 'community' at large...but, the thing is, I don't really want everyone to know what I think is worthy of being bookmarked.

I do really like that when you type in a word, and it retrieves links what that tag, it tells you how many other people have that bookmark saved. It helps you figure out which links are worthy of being clicked - well, at least what other people think is worthy.

As for it's usefulness as a research tool...both yes and no. It is a good way to find other links regarding a subject. When I searched 'Heian', for example (that's the name of a period in Japanese history), I got a great website on The Tale of Genji I had never seven seen. It would have been very useful to me when I was writing all of those Japanese history/lit papers. But because anyone can add their links to del.ici.ious, I had just as many results, maybe more, regarding an anime where one of the characters is a ghost from the Heian era (which admittedly also interests me, I love that show - but it's not useful at all in research unless you're writing a paper on Japanese pop culture). I think people would have a hard time looking at it as a serious academic tool when fun and entertainment was so mixed in with the rest.