There seems to be more and more division occuring between technical and non-technical internet users, so I have decided to write up a post about the reason blogs will ask their readers to add posts to social bookmarks and to subscribe to their FeedBurner RSS Feeds.

What is an RSS Feed? is a great article that was just posted at The SolidWorks Geek. Latest RSS Feed To Bring Update Closer for You is another article that explores the benefits of using RSS to read blogs, and Billy Chia cites this YouTube clip explaining RSS in plain terms:

Flagging

Flagging is a method that allows good articles to rise to the top. Search engines and readers cannot find a web page that was just published online unless someone has recommended or flagged that page at least once. Happening Now uses its own Green Percentage Bar flagging - whenever a reader comments on an article, reads an article through RSS, or social-bookmarks that article, it gains higher precedence over other articles.

This is fundamental to the health of content organization on the web - if readers do not flag content all content is regarded as the same, since search engines are just robots that see text and cannot determine what is good content and what is not - however, flags solve this problem.

Flags are a metaphor

You might not have seen the word flag around as much as words like Digg and Stumble. These sites are about the exact same thing as flagging. You can join them and then recommend articles to friends and the greater web environment using their tools. For example - the buttons under Talk about this: below are all social networks.

Clicking on Digg below (the first Talk about this button at the bottom) allows readers to flag the article. If the article has not been flagged at all before and you are the first person to click on the Digg button you will be asked to choose a topic-area and to confirm that the article is unique. However, for articles that have been dugg already all a reader has to do is click on Digg again to add their vote and to allow the article to rise to the top of web archives and search results.

The other benefit to flagging articles is to reduce the barrier between the author and the reader. Social networks like Digg allow readers to interact with the author of the article on a more personal level. In addition, see Social Networks Are Good/Bad for Friendship and Cyberbulling and Using social networks to reduce email clutter.

Talk about this: