When the internet first appeared, finding resources online basically required you to know the URL of a certain website. Then, Google appeared and search engines became the way to find what you were looking for. After Google became popular and successful, other general search engines, as well as niche search engines, began popping up everywhere.
Today, social media and other technologies have created hundreds of ways to find the information or resources that you are looking for. With more and more companies engaging in search engine optimization every day, the most helpful resources may be buried beneath all of the big company optimized sites. Enter the social media sites, great for digging these resources out from beneath all the clutter and promotional sites.
Delicious
Founded in 2003, delicious was all the rage just a few years ago. Since Yahoo! acquired it in 2005, it’s kind of faded into the background and become “old” social media. However, I still find it an incredibly useful tool and use it often to save all of the great resources I come across.
I also use it often to find some great resources about particular topics. For example, the other day I wanted to find some articles on writing an effective call to action. I simply typed in the tag “calltoaction” in Delicious’ Search box, shown below.
I was provided with a variety of sites that were bookmarked by others, in order of relevance, which takes into account bookmark titles, notes, tags, the amount of people who have bookmarked the page, etc. The results page is shown below, along with some indications of what certain aspects of the results page are.
Other Posts in This Series: Twitter and StumbleUpon
Other social media sites that can be used in a similar way to find some great resources include Delicious and Twitter. You can read about how I use Twitter to find resources in my post An Alternative to Search Engines: Twitter, and discover how StumbleUpon is used in a similar way in an upcoming post, An Alternative to Search Engines: StumbleUpon.
Do You Have Alternatives for Search Engines?
How do you find your resources? Do you rely on search engines or are there other social media sites that you use to find things? I look forward to hearing your experiences and tips in the comments section.
eMarketing & New Media 
I am stucked with Delicious, the website’s simple interface, human-readable URL scheme, a novel domain name, a simple REST-like API, and RSS feeds for web syndication are very helpful for my search in the internet. Haven’t tried other engines ever since.