"The Next Few Minutes Were Delicious" [SOLI]

One of the features that I've tried to keep up with here - but there never seems to be enough time - is sharing all of the HTML links from Peter Blau's monthly Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press. As you may know, his is the definitive Sherlockian newsletter; you can receive it either electronically or through the mail.

The irony is that even though Peter continues to churn out the newsletter in ASCII, thanks to WordPerfect, he's including HTML links. And each successive issue has more links, it seems. So much so that became cumbersome for me to look at each, format the entries and write a post.

Well, I've decided to dip into my social media toolbox and use one of the more useful sites out there - it's a bookmarking site called del.icio.us. You know the bookmark folder you have up there in your browser? It's like that, except it's online, so you can access it no matter where you are. Some features worth noting:

• You can make the bookmarks private, so only you can see them
• You can make them public, so you can share them with other people
• There's space to write a description, as a handy reminder as to why you thought the site was worth bookmarking in the first place
• And it's all driven by what's called "tags," or unique identifiers that help figure out what each site is (for example, this site might be tagged blog, Sherlock Holmes, Scott Monty)

So, I've established a del.icio.us page for Scuttlebutt for the Spermaceti Press, which will allow you to find all of the links in one place: http://del.icio.us/scuttlebuttfromthespermacetipress. You'll be able to search the links by category as well as by time, as I'm bundling them by month.

Another great feature: if you open your own del.icio.us account (for free - all you need is an email address), you can suggest links directly to the Scuttlebutt del.icio.us account. All you have to do is tag your entry "for:scuttlebuttfromthespermacetipress" and it will show up in the inbox of Scuttlebutt's del.icio.us account. For more information and background, go to http://del.icio.us/help/.

If you're totally confused, I implore you watch this 3 1/2 minute video, entitled Social Bookmarking in Plain English:


And now, after the long wait, here are the Scuttlebutt links for December 2007.


What do you think of this new arrangement? Does it sound like a resource you'll use? Would you think about creating an account for yourself? Let me know.