Social Bookmarking

[David]

Those little social bookmarking (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_bookmarking) links have now become a standard feature on a lot of websites but I'm dubious as to their effectiveness (possibly because I don't use them - not being a member of any of them). Does anyone here use del.icio.us, Digg, Stumbleupon, Reddit etc.?

I noticed recently that the BBC are using them (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/6915817.stm) and I'm aware that my own site does not score well with such services and some metrics for SEO now consider the number of social bookmarks an indicator of a sites importance. Should I add them?

[James]

I have used delicious to search for stuff. It's good for web designers because there are lots of neat tricks and tutorials that I might not have found otherwise. But I have not registered and don't contribute.

I think the number of people who actually click on those "add bookmark" things must be very low. But maybe a bit higher for design-related sites like cadtutor.

I've been thinking of adding these buttons to my site too.