Finding a Social Bookmarking Soulmate! (SBS)

Finding a user that shares my interests and analyzing their use of social media

Paul Allitor (paulallitor) of Diigo shares my passion for progressive politics, along with a healthy sprinkling of web tools, music links, and other topics (there seem to also be quite a few links to weight loss stories). He will definitely be an excellent SBS for content related to health care and politics research, but he doesn't seem to have more recreational bookmarks; Since much of my browsing time is spent on cheeseburger reviews, web comics, and other miscellaneous entertainment, I'll have to turn to StumbleUpon or my Google Reader friends for more of that.

For the political reading, though, Allitor will be a great help. He's been on Diigo for almost a year, with nearly 3000 bookmarks, showing consistent use and up-to-date content. His tags aren't too organized, since his top two tags are "nytimes" and "nytimes.com," respectively, and there are separate "fat" and "obesity" tags. Also, there are tags for the words "of" and "in", meaning he probably messed up somewhere with putting quotes around the multi-word tags. All the same, working my way down the list of the materials he's bookmarked has been quite productive.

One blog, Hullabaloo, is run primarily by the blogger Digby with other guest writers occasionally visiting. While the site looks like it was made c. 1998 (off-yellow background, TNR font, distorted picture at the top) the commentary is sharp and astute, conveniently focusing on the health care debate. I'm proud to add it to my blogroll.

Allitor also brought to my attention "Little Green Footballs," written by the conservative-leaning Charles Johnson. He's actually in the midst of a scuffle over further-right folks condemning his "conservative" label, as he certainly doesn't follow the GOP party line. He's strongly against Islamic fundamentalism, but is very outspoken in his opposition to Glenn Beck and the sensationalism coming from his corner of politics. In my search for balanced commentary that comes from examination of the issues on a case by case basis instead of dogma, Johnson is a perfect blogger to have along for the ride.

All in all, I look forward to keeping up with paulallitor. He's pulled together some great stuff, and I'm sure he'll continue to do so.