Believe It or Not... I actually Found My Social Bookmarking Soulmate!

Believe it or not... I have heard about del.icio.us about a year ago, but I never had the chance to try it, or even just create an account for it. After knowing so much more about social bookmarking, for the first time of my life, I registered for a diigo AND del.icio.us account! So now you know my blog is about bizarre, or in other words, scary food, I naturally subscribed to articles and websites that are related to them. In spite of how large the user base of del.icio.us is, I found it extremely hard to look for my social bookmarking soulmate (someone that shares similar interests with me on the web). It literally took me 3 hours to get used to the website, bookmark the sites I found interesting, and patiently look for the one person to pop up. But just when I was about to give up, I found you... after so long... HoustonFoodie!

HoustonFoodie, I don't know if you will ever read this blog, I don't know if you are a man or a woman, but I do know you love to eat and explore, just as much as I do! As his name implies (I am going to assume it's a "he" for the rest of the post), Foodie is a very possibly a food lover from Houston. From her 516 tags on del.icio.us, I would assertively say that more than half of them are about food, or at least food related subjects such as recipes, and restaurants. One thing I like about him, is that he also loves travelling and exploring food from all over the world. His tags include, but not limited to, food culture from "Palestines," "Mexican," "Portugal" and many more "exotic countries the West has yet to see. He also has 26 pages tagged on "travel" and "tourism," which makes us even more compatible.


HoustonFoodie's profile is pretty thorough, as he covers a lot of topical issues concerning food, including food safety and foreign food policies. Yet he never commented on any of those pages. (I think his tags pretty much explain what the pages are about though) he has about 220 bookmarked pages, in which, as I have mentioned before, more than half are food related webpages. Starting from December, 2008, HoustonFoodie bookmark pages on del.icio.us almost every single day. In less than a year, his profile has become an extremely organized page. All of his pages are categorized under specific tags, there are at least a dozen of tags named under the big umbrella of food!

In case you wonder, "food is such a common big topic, how does HoustonFoodie's profile relate to your bizarre food blog?" Indeed, he is probably as interested in bizarre food as I am. One of the oldest page he bookmarked, for example, is a step-to-step guide to butchering a lamb carcass! What interests, or probably benefits me the most, is that his pages also talk about the cultural exchange among countries through the use of food. For instance, in March 2009, he bookmarked a page concerning how pizza struggles to find its way to North Korea, which seamlessly fits the direction of my blog. While my blog tries to compare different dining experience from East to West, this article in particular, provides a lot of insight for me in researching this area of food culture.

Thanks to del.icio.us, I have found my social bookmarking soulmate! His page gives me a lot of big ideas in terms of what my blog should talk about in the future. The technology of social bookmarking tools certainly makes my research much easier and more enjoyable!