10 Reasons Most Social Bookmarking Sites Suck

The trouble with most social bookmarking sites is that they don’t have the proper balance that would make them as useful as they could be. Either there are too many sites that rank highly for no apparent reason, or there are too few gems to pluck from the sea of rubbish to make the effort worthwhile. We think there are 10 reasons most social bookmarking sites suck:

1. Ratings are often skewed. Voting up or down is frequently done between friends. The highest ranking articles on some of these sites seem to be voted up in a very biased fashion, so consequently the cream doesn’t always rise to the top.
2. They only serve to remind you of how few websites there are that are actually worth bookmarking.
3. They’re kind of like Hollywood, in a way. They tend to over-promote any kind of material that gets high ratings, until you’re sick of it.
4. Preferences and interests aren’t specific enough. If you indicate an interest in photography, for instance, you’re apt to be swamped with lolcatz, or other people’s idea of the funny pic of the day.
5. The social aspect is too often overlooked in favor of the bookmarking aspect. Users will send umpteen links a day, expecting you, as a friend/follower, to ‘like’, vote up, or stumble them all for you.
6. The intrinsic value of a site is never really factored into its ranking. It’s purely arbitrary and subjective in most cases.
7. Anything that comes with a toolbar or a feed slows down your browser, and will ultimately become more of a hindrance than a help to creating an enjoyable web surfing experience.
8. Too often these sites try to be too many things to too many people. They lose the focus of what a bookmarking site is supposed to be, trying to compete with social networking sites.
9. The guiding principle behind social bookmarking was to provide a means whereby users could create an internet that was geared toward their individual tastes. Now they seem to be driven more by advertising revenue.
10. Unfortunately, most of their resources seem to be directed toward eliminating spam, and dealing with privacy and security issues, than their primary mission.

Taken From Longhorn Leads