Tag: tools

Delicious gets a makeover

I began using the social bookmarking site Delicious in 2006 when it was deli.icio.us and owned by Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, They sold it to Yahoo who subsequently sold it to YouTube. Nobody seemed to know what to do with it and it began to be superceded by such sites as diigo. I kept using it throughout having built up a useful library of websites (2000+), tags, and a network that I really value. Now it’s back in the news with a facelift – and it looks good. The enjoyment of collecting, curating and sharing gets a boost.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wendell Berry

Here’s a nice service provided by www.tubechop.com which allows you to clip extracts from youtube videos and share them around the web.
Here Wendell Berry reads a poem during a discussion he has with another great of US literature, Gary Snyder. The poem speaks of ageing.

Spotlight Again Falls on Web Tools and Change – NYTimes.com

WASHINGTON — Fear is the dictator’s traditional tool for keeping the people in check. But by cutting off Egypt’s Internet and wireless service late last week in the face of huge street protests, President Hosni Mubarak betrayed his own fear — that Facebook, Twitter, laptops and smartphones could empower his opponents, expose his weakness to the world and topple his regime.

via nytimes.com

Shirky on Tools

On the tools side in particular he Shirky says:

“There is no such thing as a generically good tool; there are only tools good for particular jobs [but]when you improve the available tools, you expand the number of plausible promises in the world.”

and

“new tools are not always better. New tools, in fact, start with a huge social disadvantage, which is that most people don’t use them, and whenever you have a limited pool from which potential members can be drawn, you limit the social effects.”