Reading the news today, I learn about a new social bookmarking manager. It’s called Taggly and the really important point for me is that it’s completly italian. This is the second good signal coming from Italy (more on this on the TAGora project) and I’m glad to see that here too, something is moving.

I won’t go into details, talking extensively about Taggly features. The look and feel seems very fresh and smooth. Basic functionality is there:

• API support
• Del.icio.us import
• Related Tags and Tag Clouds
• Private and Public Tags
• Watchlists
• Rss Feeds
• Tagging Bookmarklet and Firefox Plugin

More advanced features like extensive Ajax Support, Ajax bookmark editing, Tag suggestion, Blog integration tools, Tag Clustering, Facets etc are not currently supported, but Taggly has been online only for a few days now.

While features are currently standard (if you take anyway del.icio.us as a comparison term), what strikes me is that the man behind this new platform is an italian student, Raffaele Rasini.

While I would like to talk to him before drawing definitive conclusions, I’m surprised how a single guy, (I think) investing only his own spare time, can come out with a site that can be compared with a sacred tool like del.icio.us. Hats off to Raffaele!

Raffaele is probably a skilled programmer and an energetic guy, but the obvious bottom line here is that tagging and social software as well will be soon considered commodities. So the strategic and competive advantages is not technology but rare content, satisfied users and the capacity to innovate aiming again to fill users’ needs.

What different startups are doing is going vertical, specializing on a niche and not thinking to social software as a goal in itself but more as a tool to create and empower a community of people and interests. Nonetheless, these platforms are not providing specialized tools for their communities. It’s the old del.icio.us model applied again and again (with few exceptions).

Strategic value means chosing a direction based on a clear vision and a good understanding of your target world. So this also involves providing innovative and specific tools that can simplify your users’ tasks or open new possibilities.

My two cents for Taggly are continuing to grow and differentiating with advanced features and tools. The starting point seems very good.

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This entry was posted on Friday, July 14th, 2006 at 11:38 am and is filed under Information Architecture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.