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guardian.co.uk
The Guardian has debuted social bookmarking. Well, not quite... |
The Guardian has brought its typical idiosyncratic approach to social bookmarking with the launch of its social bookmarking service,
Clippings. But for once I think they've missed the mark.
By clicking on the little pink scissors icon next to each story, registered users can now "clip" sarticle to their Guardian account. Yes, they could do this before -- but the revamped service allows users to see others' saved stories and subscribe to a feed, or publish their own Clippings feed elsewhere.
These are welcome additions to an older service. However, there are some glaring oversights.
Firstly, although Clippings doesn't use the phrase "social bookmarking" is not used, this is clearly an attempt at that -- but it isn't social. There is no way to discover other bookmarkers apart from, as Inside Guardian suggests, "guessing" their name.
Furthermore, this system does not recommend new articles as a result of what you bookmark -- although you can click on Guardian-defined categories to see the latest stories about ITV, for instance.
To add insult to injury, if you want to import your old "saved stories"... you can't. You must visit each one and clip it all over again. Nice.
Here we have a centralized service that requires you to be logged in and is generally controlled and defined by the publisher. Why would I use this when I can't create my own categories? When it doesn't help me discover new things, or organize old ones in new ways? When I can only bookmark Guardian stories? Where is the benefit?
Here are my suggestions for The Guardian:
- Allow tagging and user categorization. Make them into links so you can see what else is being tagged similarly. Allow people to discover each other through shared interests.
- Create a widget or bookmarklet so people can clip material from (shock, horror!) other sites.
- Publicize staff clippings. It's important and interesting that I can view Guardian Unlimited Editor-in-chief Emily Bell's clippings. (Sadly, no clippings as of this writing for Jemima Kiss.) But does The Guardian make this visible on Emily Bell's articles? No. Not even her profile includes a link. What a missed opportunity. If I respect her work as a journalist, there's a chance I'll want to be reading what she reads. That's where The Guardian -- and news organizations generally -- have an advantage: their editorial angle, brand, and relationship.
...And what a great way to keep readers on your site.
More broadly, I've written elsewhere about the concept of letting readers see "What the journalist read to write this" as part of the model for a 21st century newsroom. Also, Radio 4's iPM del.ico.us account is a great example of this strategy.
Having said all that, I'm guessing this is actually a stepping stone to The Guardian's planned social networking service, where user profiles will link to their clippings pages -- and, I hope, allow more serendipity and linkage.
In the meantime, there's an opportunity to fix these glaring problems first.
