Delicious, the social bookmarking website, has launched a completely new version of their site and service. They announced that they were working on a new version in December, and even released access to a demo version of the site so that users could preview the changes and provide feedback. The new version is clean and contemporary, and offers easy access to the site services that are most important: finding interesting links, finding interesting people, and reviewing the links you’ve previously bookmarked.
A New Design
The new design uses the same blue, black and white color scheme, but in a new way that is both clean and comfortable. The default view for the site is the Discover tab, which shows you links that other users have bookmarked. You can search by keyword or select from a list of tags. You’ll also see a list of recomended links by Delicious. Each link includes a + button to the right so that you can easily add any interesting links to your own set of bookmarks.
The primary navigation includes a dynamic Search bar in which you can search keywords, tags, usernames, your network and tag bundles. You can then choose from Discover (find new links), Network (find new people to follow) and Remember (view your profile and saved links).
Another new feature is Keyboard Shortcuts. The shortcuts allow you to quickly focus your search and navigate the site.
Getting Started
If you haven’t already created an account with Delicious, getting started is easy. Go to https://delicious.com/ and click on Join Now. You can choose to connect using your Twitter or Facebook account, or click Create Account to type in your details manually.
Once you have created your account, you can upload a profile image, type in a brief description, and choose to connect your Twitter and Facebook accounts if you have not already. We haven’t yet seen much in the way of brand usage of Delicious yet, but that’s something we’re going to keep an eye on and will provide recomendations and case studies.
Please note that if you choose to connect your Twitter and Facebook accounts, Delicious has the option of automatically bookmarking any links you share on those platforms. The bookmarks are automatically marked as Private until you log into your Delicious account and make the link Public.
Begin bookmarking your blogs and articles and great content from your website. Make sure that you treat your Delicious account like any other social network: as an opportunity to provide information and value to your followers.
Use the Network tab to begin following and finding other Delicious users of interest. They, in turn, may begin to follow you and bookmark your content.
Business Uses
Delicious now closely resembles StumbleUpon in functionality, since members are encouraged to explore and discover new and different links. This makes it a great platform for businesses to share and discover great content.
Every time you create a new piece of content, it needs to be shared to Delicious. You can choose to automatically share content from Facebook and Twitter, but due to potential duplication of links, I prefer to leave those services unconnected and share individual links manually.
Don’t forget to share third-party content as well. While you may not use the 80%/20% rule of sharing on this particular platform (The “20%” refers to how only 20% of content shared should be from your own site), you should still strive to include a significant number of links and articles from othe sources.
When you share your content, be sure to use Tags to help organize the links, not only for yourself, but for your followers as well.
Aside from generating traffic an interest in your business, there are a number of other ways in which a business might use Delicious:
- Collect Resources
- Tag Actionable Links for later use – such as a How To guide that you don’t have time for today
- Company Sharing
- Backlink Tracking
Let us know what you think of the new Delicious. If you’ve been using the service for a while now, how do you like the changes? Any negative feedback or issues?