The social bookmarking service Del.icio.us has still not quite reached the mainstream, despite being purchased by Yahoo in late 2005. The URL itself (delicious.com also works) is almost designed to be off-putting to the average Web user.

But, it is currently one of my favorite sites and is a great research tool and time-saver.

I have a 'network' of 48 other users on the service who during the course of their daily activities save links to Web sites, blog entries, new products etc that they find relevant and noteworthy. As most of the 48 are online media professionals, what they find interesting I usually find interesting. In effect it is like having 48 personal research assistants scouring the web 24/7 looking for great new content. Of course my own bookmarking also provides them the same service.

One of the other great things Del.icio.us does is innovate constantly. The latest fun feature allows users to automatically post their daily collection of links and comments to their blog - which is a great example of how to build a brand by giving up control to your users.

In any case the ability to automatically create a 'link blog' from your Del.icio.us bookmarks is probably a mixed blessing. It is easy, but is it worthwhile for anyone else to read a blog entry of URLs?

Well, I am not sure, but I am playing with it anyway - the first 'auto' post appears below.