del.icio.us has rolled out a new feature (currently in beta) that allows you to make any of your bookmarked webpages private. To activate your private settings simply log into your del.icio.us account click ’settings’ and then click ‘private saving’. Simple as that.
In the words of del.icio.us founder Joshua Schachter: “This is a big step for del.icio.us, but one that I hope will make it more useful. Because del.icio.us is all about sharing and we don’t want to discourage that, we will be watching how this feature impacts the community and will also be experimenting a bit with the UI over the next few weeks.”
I guess it is a big step for an application that bases itself on sharing but I think it’s a great idea. I have no problem with sharing my bookmarked pages whatsoever, but I would like the option to keep a few personal snippets to myself every now and again. I’ll give you an example, I was helping a guy who sells Chlamydia home testing kits a few months back so I had to carry out a little research on the infection via the web. What better place to save my findings than my del.icio.us account (which I did) but there was always the worry that anyone who happens to browse my saved bookmarks got the wrong idea. 
This new option could be helpful to an organisation with members based in different locations as a sort of collaborative bookmarking site. Of course del.icio.us could have been used for this purpose before the introduction of the private saving setting, but I bet there are one or two companies who are rather discouraged by the thought of their web research being out there for all to see.
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Stephen is a communications consultant based out of the UK. You can connect with him on Twitter or check out his LinkedIn profile. | Email Stephen
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