I am excited. I've recently discovered an internet tool that has become as important to me as Google, and it is del.icio.us. But before you take a quick glance at the site and write me off as a kook, please let me explain.

Google changed the way I used the web. When I wanted to find something online, I had a trusted source to go and get it. It didn't take long before I was using it to answer trivia questions and critical work related questions. But Google is a reactive tool. It can't really anticipate my needs or easily introduce new stuff to me that might be helpful down the road.

Del.icio.us is a Proactive tool. I use it to introduce me to answers to problems that I havn't yet encountered, to track what is going on in my profession. I use it like I use news and blogs, but it is neither news or a blog. So what is Del.icio.us? It is billed as a social bookmarking site. My first impression was that Del.icio.us was a central bookmarking location. A place where I can post my bookmarks and access them from any computer or browser connected to the internet. With a lightweight interface, the service is fast and provides clean URLs to make it easy to share bookmarks with others. I was impressed by the use of some cutting edge concepts like using tags instead of folders and custom RSS feeds for nearly every page.

My first impression was right, but I almost missed it's place as the proactive web tool of choice. A little more exploring and I discovered the del.icio.us popular index, a place where I can check in to see what sites are being bookmarked the most on any given day. Cool! It is like InfoPop or blogdex but with some fresh stuff. The quality, of the popular links, is noteworthy. These are links that many people have felt are worth keeping track of and intend to revisit.

Soon after, I was looking at my collection of bookmarks tagged as 'DIY' and noticed a link offering a peak at what others had tagged as "DIY". Very cool. I can visit that page and get a current view of potentially interesting links related to DIY. I'm finding stuff that I find really interested but wouldn't have thought to ask for.

Del.icio.us had my attention and was rapidly becoming part of my daily cycle. I check del.icio.us popular feeds along with my news every morning.

But tracking all of the recent bookmarks for the tags that I want to track requires looking at a handful of pages. So I thought. The finishing touch is the 'inbox' feature on del.icio.us. When viewing the recent bookmarks for the DIY tag, I clicked a confusing link labeled 'subscribe'. Ah! de.icio.us adds the subscribed 'tags' and consolidates the new bookmarks in your inbox. This means, I can track my "DIY", "HowTo" and "Productivity" tags in one place.

That is it, I am sold. I won't be leaving del.icio.us anytime soon.