Investor Resource Review: Widgets and del.icio.us

I must admit I am a bit slow. Despite Howard touting widgets as the next big thing for a while, I just did not get it. Further, while a lot of people use del.icio.us to share readings they think are important, I was not too keen on the idea. So I am a bit embarrassed to say it has taken me a while to figure out how to combine the two, widgets and del.icio.us, into something useful for myself and hopefully readers of this blog. I just had not seen how the two ideas could merge into something I think is pretty cool. Until now.

As you know, I like to read a lot of blogs. For example, I read Trader Mike, Trading Goddess, Bill, Maoxian as well as those blogs profiled here, because they help me grow as an investor. Over time, as I have read the blog posts, I have come to trust the judgment and insight of the blog authors. I am not saying I agree with everything they write or that they are always correct. Rather, I am saying I have found that what they have to say is always thought provoking and worth my time to read. My problem was, in between blog posts how can I learn more from them? Better yet, how can I see what they are reading which inspires their own development? That is where del.icio.us comes in.

As many of you already know, del.icio.us is a social bookmarking website. Essentially, you read an article on the web, like it, save it to your del.icio.us account, and other members of del.icio.us who are in your network can see what you are reading. Therefore, when those bloggers who I like to read are also part of del.icio.us, I can quickly get an idea of what articles they are reading with links to those articles. (Ed Note: This may seem painfully obvious to most of you, but Steven was not kidding when he said he was a bit slow).

Now my next question was, how can I use that to help others? That's where Howard and the widgets come in to play. Del.icio.us allows me to link to the RSS feed for either my own current bookmarks or those of my networks. In other words, I can easily "see" in an RSS feed not only what I like but what everyone else who is in my network is currently reading and thinks is worth bookmarking and sharing.

So I asked myself, why don't I just take that RSS feed drop it into a widget and post it on my site so my readers can see what I or others that I trust, are currently reading. Of course after a minute, I realized that I had an ethical problem with dropping the RSS feed of my del.icio.us network on my blog. That is because while those in my network obviously have no problem sharing their submissions with me, that is not the same as wanting me to "publicly" post them on a blog for my own purposes.

So instead I decided to just use my own personal selections from my network that make up my bookmark list along with my own readings. I then created an RSS link in a widget so that everyone who comes to the blog can see, click, and read. If you look on the right of this post you will see the last several articles I have posted to my del.icio.us account with an attribution if I did not find it myself.

Let me know what you think.