What is Social Bookmarking and Why Should You Care?

Thanks Pam!

Whenever I post something that I think my friends & family who aren't on Gather would like to read, I click the bookmark button and select 'myspace'. Then I post it as a bulletin and it shows up on their myspace pages and they can come to my post on Gather to read it. They usually don't comment because they'd have to sign up to do that, but at least they read it and know what's going on with me!

Even though I've never shared my Gather items with any social bookmarking sites other than myspace, I do like it.

My only suggestion about the button is to move it or the rate button because every single time I try to rate something, the bookmark menu pops up over the stars so I can't click on anything. I get frustrated and end up not rating at all!

Thank you for the info. I was not aware of this. I would like to point out that Stumble Upon was just recently bought by a relative unknown. Kim Komando (www.komando.) advises people who use Stumble Upon not to use the service anymore because tech savvy people are uncertain as to where the company may be headed.

I use delicious all the time and never thought to bookmark something through Gather. Thank you for sharing this.

Wonderful tips, Pam!

Great explanation. Thanks for sharing it!

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Thank you for sharing this valuable information.

Hi Faith - Thanks for feedback and insight into your social bookmarking success. I also bookmark almost everything I share on Facebook and Twitter... and it really makes a difference. You bring up a great point about the location of the bookmark button. A) people often don't see it. and B) sometimes they end up on the RATE or LINK button instead. We're working on it!

Andrea - I'm glad you enjoyed the info and felt you learned something from it. I hope I've inspired you to bookmark your Gather content (or great content you discover on Gather) on delicious!

Thanks for info.

Pam,

For Digg you wrote the following:

"The trick is sharing lots of quality links… not just the stuff you write."

Since a significant quantity of Gather content bookmarked to Digg is spam or self-promotional, I agree that quality of content is a key concern. All of these web resources are woefully underutilized however (of course, some of them are not a proper fit for Gather content too).

I'm glad though that you're stressing thoughtful use as a critical consideration for members!

Thanks for the info Pam, -- I too was not aware of all this!!!!

I never really understood this either or the difference among these groups. I will have to make more of an effort to explore this option for connecting to folks, especially when I write an applicable article. A lot of what I write is book reviews, and they can be a hard sell. However, I have had a couple of privacy rights articles about governmental changes recently, so they might do better.

Thanks for posting this article. It really provides food for thought!

I have used Digg before, but that's the only one.

Appreciate the info and the links, Pam.

I went back to an older article of mine today and found it had 567 views. I have no idea where they came from.

Thanks Pam,
I will post a link to this in the Today post.

You're welcome for the feedback, Pam.

I used to rate '10's' on anything I viewed before commenting and now that it's hard to navigate (especially with my touchpad on my laptop) I skip rating altogether. :o(

So... I'm happy to hear that you're working on a fix for the buttons & can't wait to see what happens with all of that. I sure would love to be able to rate things again!

Thanks Pam...very interesting..I'll have to think about how this might apply to me ....

Thanks

thanks this was very informative

oh what a good idea ty

Thanks for the info, Pam... I think I'll bookmark this!! :-)

We learn something new every day.

Thanks for the information. Much of these options are new to me. I tried using the digg one once and it wouldn't work for me. Probably a personal problem. lol

Great explanation. Thanks for sharing
And I am with Faith on the rating thing I used to rate everything asll the time now only if specifically asked by a friend as it is a pain

thanks for this article, pam! del.icio.us is an integral part of my life - i use it to save everything!

Thanks Pam!

Thanks for posting this Pam. I'm interested in Gather member experiences with social bookmarking... anyone care to share? Point me to your Gather post?

Do the people who look at your articles, etc. have to be Gather members to drive up points?. I had a ton of hits on some Lynyrd Skynyrd photos I posted and the link was shared on Skynyrd's site. I had a ton of comments on their message board, but my points didn't move at all on Gather.

great information, thanks

thanks

After having read this I gotta say that I don't care. Seems like a Gather plug for its links to social bookmarking sites.

Really great information Pam!

Hi Chuck - To answer your question, the people who view your content DON'T have to be Gather members for you to earn points. You earn Gather Points by generating unique views to your content. You don't earn more/extra points by having Gather members view your stuff over other types of visitors. The key here is sheer viewership.

I'm confused by the experience you had with your Lynyrd Skynyrd photo. I'll have to look into that and get back to you.

thanks fo the info!

Thanks Pam for answering the views, as I'm sure many people wanted to know this answer.

I would like to see the ratings button changed, as that pull down is hard to use.

Hmm...Seems to me that Gather management has also said that only views by members count toward points. Which is it?

Hi Nippy - I'm sorry if you feel as though there's been some sort of inconsistency about how members earn points on Gather. Hopefully this conversation will help clear things up. Gather members earn points by sharing popular, broadly read/viewed content on the site. People viewing that content don't have to be Gather members (be we sure would love it if they were!) Members do not earn more points by having their content read by Gather members vs. unregistered visitors. It's simply a matter of views. I hope this helps to clear up confusion around this issue!

the people who view your content DON'T have to be Gather members for you to earn points. You earn Gather Points by generating unique views to your content. -- Pam Johnston

Really ... since when ??? Has Gather truly changed the way they increment page views and credit authors for non-member reading/viewing?

Pam, unless Gather has changed the accounting processes for non-member page-views, your answer to Chuck is only partially correct. Extra-member page-view accounting was an issue back with the correspondent corps. Several correspondents knew they had extra-member readership and reported that they were not being properly credited with all their page-views from readers outside the Gather community. The answer then was that non-member or unlogged-in members page-views are only counted once and the author receives one single page-view credit regardless of how many unique extra-member page-views are generated by those types of viewers. So, Chuck (and all other Gather member publishers as well) will get credited with a single page-view and whatever number of pointy things™ Gather is handing out on that particular day, but only ONE page-view total for all the combined extra-Gather and unlogged-in member page-views of their work.

Case in point – I was not logged onto Gather when I read your post. I noted the number of page-views did not increment after I opened the article, nor did they after I refreshed the page. Another extra-Gather reader had already viewed your post before me; therefore, you had received all the extra-Gather viewer credit due you and will receive no more for this post. However, your pointy things™ might increase after receiving credit for me posting a comment to your article, and now that I am logged onto Gather you may or may not receive a page-view increment if the Gather system acknowledges my login status over just my IP address.

The Frog hit this one out of the ballpark!:

After having read this I gotta say that I don't care. Seems like a Gather plug for its links to social bookmarking sites. -- Nippy Katz (not his real name) Patriotic Troll of Gather Freedom, Oct 29, 2008, 12:35pm EDT

I agree with Nippy that this seems to be more a ploy to get members to bookmark “Gather” on these social search engines than an actual means to any significant increase in earnings. The only way this would trickle down to more points is if people following links back to Gather from the social bookmarking sites were to then join Gather and view and comment on that author’s work. Which isn’t a bad thing, but is a much less certain thing than you try to make it sound in your article. Crediting members for page-views from outside the community is not a difficult thing to do, even the most basic web logs catch most IP addresses and would delineate the majority of unique page-views. There is a lot of mis-information floating around about Gather’s reward program, always has been, but much of it has come from the corner office. It would be great if extra-member readership was the way you are presenting it, but I really think you need to check your sources and verify the facts so the community has the whole truth about the claims made in this article and your further comments.

By the way … Links to Gather content have previously been blocked by some of these bookmarking sites, and most of these social bookmarking sites at least frown upon, if not outright ban, the practice of submitting your own content! Technorati is one such bookmarking site. By encouraging members to bookmark their own content it is quite possible that a deluge of self-bookmarking will again get Gather and its member authors banned from some of the sites.

Thanks Pam, lots of helpful tips here, I never seem to remember to this sort of stuff, must
make a mental note now to DO THIS more often! thank you!

Thanks for the explanation on page views.

Thanks for all the information. I will have to try this soon.

IT worked for me and a person who viewed my content joined gather this morning.
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?memberId=261008&articleId=281474977493025&nav=MyGather

There have been several questions on this thread about how page views from members and visitors affect earnings here on Gather.

To be clear, ALL page views are factored into your point earnings (except those you accumulate by viewing your own content). Gather counts both member views and visitor views alike. But, Gather does not count views you generate by viewing your own content when determining point earnings.

I hope this helps clarify the confusion around how page views (from members and visitors alike) help you earn Gather Points.

thanks for this! ;)

Thanks for the info.

Thanks, Pam.

Pam, I see that you have deleted your original response on Oct 29th to my comment and replaced it on Oct 30th with a more shrouded coporate-speak response - "To be clear, ALL page views are factored into your point earnings (except those you accumulate by viewing your own content). Gather counts both member views and visitor views alike.". While you state that "all" page views are factored in, both member and visitor alike, you no longer unequivically state that the factored values are the same for both types of page views. As the prince said, "something smells in Denmark, and it is not the cheese".