Delicious: a social bookmarking site so that you can access your links from any computer, share them with your friends, or share them with the world. It’s easy to see the personal uses of Delicious, but what about other uses?

The Walrus magazine is already considered to be an industry leader when it comes to using Twitter as a successful business tool. However, I think that having a Delicious account for the magazine could also be incredibly helpful.

The Walrus posts a multitude of links on their Twitter, and those that follow them and check frequently will easily be able to stay up-to-date on all that information. But what about people who are new to their Twitter, or don’t check it every day? Keeping up can be pretty daunting, and that’s how I think Delicious could help.

Using Delicious, The Walrus would be able to have a comprehensive, easily-searchable directory of all of its links posted on Twitter that users can view and access. Then, if they miss a few days of tweets, they don’t miss the information that interests them.

Furthermore, it would be another innovative way to use web 2.0 for The Walrus, continuing their trend as a leader in interacting with users, rather than a follower.

When people are looking for how-to videos, they probably go to YouTube and similar sites first. Not only is there an excellent search function, but you can find a video showing you how to do almost anything. Magazines are losing out by not providing instructional video to go along with their how-to topics.

Take Lou Lou magazine, for example.  They have a nice article about how to apply foundation, but it would be much more useful to have a video that actually shows how to do it—they could even show what happens if you do try to fill in your wrinkles with foundation (which the article warns against). Not only would it be informative, it would also be entertaining!

The Tyee is a great example of video use, although the majority of the content is generated by “amateurs” that aren’t part of the magazine. But there’s nothing wrong with that, so long as credit is given where it’s due!

Vlogging might also be a good idea for magazines, considering that many magazine websites have blogs (often from magazine editors). How can a magazine make their blogs stand out? Personally, I’d like to see one of the editors who blogs about their work experiences (often a fashion editor blogging about the newest productive they’ve tried, or newest treatment they’ve undergone) try a vlog instead.

Take this blog post, for example. It’s from the editor blog on Lou Lou magazine, and it’s very short. While there are comments about how gorgeous the editor looks, what would be more interesting is if this blog was a vlog of the editor’s hair transformation—it would engage users (and so would the gossip from the stylist about that Hollywood party), show a very human side to the editor (because we all have bad hair days) and showing the transformation would make others more inclined to try the Moroccanoil Oil Treatment that this post seems to be endorsing.

Vlogging and added video content on magazine websites, however, would probably require a greater time commitment from everyone involved, although it wouldn’t necessarily have to be expensive. After all, a multitude of users watch, enjoy, and respond to the amateur videos on YouTube.

Maybe other magazines should first try following The Tyee’s example, and make use of amateur content that is already out their to make their websites more attractive and generate user response.

I don’t use Twitter (wow, this is sounding like my “I don’t have Facebook” post, but I don’t have any strong objects to Twitter) at present, because I don’t think I have anything worth “tweeting” about. Plus, I still find Twitter to be somewhat confusing. I do, however, read Twitters that I’m fond of– for fictional characters in a webcomic that I read on a regular basis, or for magazines. I don’t look at the Twitters of people I know because, honestly, I don’t really need to know if they’re working on a project, going to go have a shower, or … anything more personal than that.

I do, however, read about Twitter. I read the article “How magazines should use Twitter“, for example. Note that the title doesn’t question if a magazine should use Twitter, but rather, assumes that the magazine does use Twitter or, if they don’t, implies that they should hurry up and start “tweeting”.

About what? Well, The Walrus magazine is cited as an excellent example, because it is “witty, upbeat and personal,” engaging with the magazine publishing industry rather than simply broadcasting about their magazine. In my opinion, simply broadcasting is rather like a one-sided conversation: you’re talking at someone, not with someone, and you’re certainly not listening.

“How magazines should use Twitter” suggests that The Walrus is listening, and a quick look at The Walrus‘ Twitter seems to support that. There are a lot of tweets sharing links, but there are also a lot of tweets that are in response to individuals and other magazines.

I assume those links are part of their RSS Feed, talked about in the article as the bare minimum way that magazines should use Twitter.

I don’t agree with the article, however, that having no Twitter is better for a magazine than having one which only uses Twitter to post RSS feeds. After all, a magazine that uses Twitter can possibly reach a new audience, even if their tweets aren’t very interesting, or there is no interaction with others. Getting yourself out there – as the article suggests Best Health is beginning to do – ought to be better for a magazine than not having any presence on Twitter. So long as the Twitter is professional, rather than personal – and how personal is an RSS Feed? Not at all! – I think the magazine would benefit from being on Twitter, even if it unable to devote more time to improving their involvement with the Twitter community.

It’s true, unfortunately. Books and magazines are made from paper, and paper comes from trees. The Publishing industry can be incredibly wasteful – for example, a large percentage of magazines that are printed are never sold. They’re returned to the publisher, where they’re destroyed. Even if that matter is recycled, a tree was killed once-upon-a-time for the paper to be made in the first place.

This is improving, of course. More recycled content is being used in the paper for books and magazines. For example, the book Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was published by Raincost Books in Canada, and Raincoast used 100% post-consumer recycled paper. Ancient-forest friendly, FSC certified paper is becoming less expensive and more readily available. But books and magazines still kill trees.

I’m not an avid magazine reader – I often read magazine articles that I’m interested in online – and I recycle all the magazines that I buy. But I am guilty of purchasing huge numbers of books.

Sometimes I think that I should strongly consider e-books and an e-book reader,because in the long term it may be less wasteful and harmful to the environment, but this post shows, I love the physical book too.

So what’s to be done?

Some publishers are trying to make a start in a very logical place: children’s books.  After all, catching people’s interest as young as possible may go a long way to increasing environmental consciousness. One day, those children may become adults who will demand that their books be printed on 100% post-consumer recycled paper. Or, of course, those children may grow up to be adults who use the Kindle (or whatever it will be called in the future) and think that paper books are wasteful.

Either way, progress in the Publishing industry in terms of environmental impact is being made, and should continue. Hopefully we can have our books and magazines, and love our trees too.