I am just beginning to dig deep into the latest web trend called "social networking" or "social marketing." It's basically word of mouth via the web. You see a website, image, video, or other resource you like and you "bookmark" and add it to your account from using one of the many social networking sites like StumbleUpon, Orkut, Digg, Squidoo, and many others.
Yes, know I am a little late to the "social networking" party, but I am busy making money for clients via search engine optimization, website optimization, pay per click marketing, business consulting, and other "traditional" marketing methods.
Anyway, I have a StumbleUpon account, and an Orkut, Digg, and others too. But man, to keep this up adding bookmarks day after day to each one can be very time consuming. Especially when you aren't even sure of the outcome.
I guess my concern is that this rampant bookmarking by businesses is just another fly-by-night way to get some cheap traffic. Basically it’s link farms re-incarnated. 
But I could be wrong. I don’t know enough yet to make a final judgment.
Here is one gal who thinks social bookmarking is a bunch of hogwash. She is Molly Wood, section editor at CNET.com, and she makes some really good points. Here they are in a nutshell:
- There's nothing to do there
- It takes too much time
- Traffic alone isn't enough
- Strangers kind of suck (or, put nicely, the social hierarchy is really not that attractive)
- We already have the Internet
Read the full article here. I welcome your comments…
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