Delicious

Delicious is a social bookmarking site. It allows users to bookmark sites of interest and share them with other users. Delicious is a free site and allows bookmarks to be stored online. It is an improvement on a traditional search engine as user feedback is given on a particular search term making it easier to decide whether or not a website is substantial. The layout reminded me of Pinterest, a site my wife is addicted to. Users are able to "stack" different websites together by topic and publish these to be seen by other users.  It was very easy to get started. I searched a few times for various terms that all led to a wide variety of sites. The education search led to some interesting sites like Kahn academy. Delicious looks like a great resource and has potential utility for teachers looking for educational information.

Google Reader is an interesting tool with a wide-variety of uses. It is an RSS feed that allows users to have information from their favorite websites sent directly to them. It is absolutely something that must be managed or it could get overwhelming. I've used various RSS feeds through my desktop in the past and they would typically get overlooked as my home page went directly to my favorite news source and I would browse to all the sites I was subscribed to. It is a nice way to get information quickly, and it looks as though Reader can be accessed by smartphone. So that is one nice prospect of this type of application.

The last site is LibraryThing. After going through this site, it looks very similar to goodreads, which I have been a member of for around a year now. These sites are outstanding sources of information. They catalog your personal library, or they can catalog the books you have read in the past. Based on your reading history, suggestions are created to determine other authors and books you may enjoy. Your "library" is also accessible to other users. This is extremely helpful when looking for new books. You can simply look at other users with similar libraries and use their reading list for help. It can also serve as a motivator. You can set up a list of books you want to read and set goals for when they will be read. This type of site is outstanding, and I really am glad I've been on another that is very similar.