Isn't It Del.icio.us?

OK this is hard for me to admit. I think of myself as a social networking/Web 2.0/Library 2.0 savvy kind of person. I've introduced blogs into multiple workplaces. I have 500 books in my LibraryThing library. I spend way too much time on Facebook. But the sad truth is ... I'm afraid of Del.icio.us.

I've basically had the same reaction some of my friends have to Facebook: I don't get it. I've seen it, at work where one of my colleagues has used it to compile a list of recommended websites on all kinds of topics (she even included my personal blog there, bless her, before we were colleagues) and I've used the page Stephanie created for this course. But I just didn't get how it worked. And in my own defense, I have to say the name with all those periods in weird places is not exactly inviting. I had to check about five times to see if the dot came before or after the first i and I still got it wrong in the title to this post.

Now I've listened to a podcast tutorial recommended on the 23 Things site. I've created an account. I'm going to start tagging. And I think I get it. I'm still not sure how much I'll use it -- and I'm sure it's never going to reach Facebook-like cultural dominance. But that's cool. It looks like it could be really useful for tracking and sharing information.

In case you're wondering about the image ... it's from a 1956 book called Party Cake Houses, courtesy of one of the very first sites that made me love the interwebs, back in the dark ages of dialup and AOL -- James Lilek's brilliant Gallery of Regrettable Food. This, by the way, is just part of the ever-expanding always worthwhile online Lileks empire. If you have a job where you can waste time online, or you need to procrastinate on, say, an extra credit school assignment, you can't beat this site.