For me, bookmarks are my board of choice when surfing the Internet. Before I purchased my laptop, I faced an interesting dilemma: my bookmarks (ie: my key to efficient research) were located on my desktop pc, but I found it difficult to be productive at home. In my sedentary years, a site like del.icio.us would have been a Godsend. The ability to access websites without sending myself a million e-mails of important links, would have allowed me to maintain organized and efficient research. (Picture found at: http://www.pcrs.ca/Images/PtoW/Living/surfing%20internet.jpg)
While I can see the benefits of del.icio.us as an organizer, I am not convinced that it is a far superior search engine. It seems as though tagging takes too much effort. In order to maximize the benefit of tagging, users must understand and embrace the rules of the tagging language. While they are not complex, they do take effort and I am not convinced that the vast majority of users do not give up on tagging before they master it.
Although skeptical, I did find educational browsing more efficient on del.icio.us. In comparisons to a Google search, it seems that fewer educational 'pay' sites appear in the search queue. This allowed me to find more valuable content, some of which I would be willing to use or adapt for use in my classroom.
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