www.fark.com Fark.com does not obviously seem to be a social bookmarking website. It is a humorous look at pop culture and the news, and is widely read by people as an entertainment site. However, it is one of the most powerful social bookmarking sites around, and has the power to drive massive amounts of traffic to any website.
Fark is, in essence, a community based website.
Its creator Drew Curtis designed it so that it allows users to comment on a batch of articles and news items that are updated daily. A seven day archive is also available for comment. Links to the articles or news items are submitted by registered Fark members which are then approved (green lit) or disapproved by the site administrators. Whether the links are approved or not, they can still have comment threads around them. Moderators monitor the discussion boards and any content that violates posting guidelines is removed.
Another variation of Fark is Total fark. This is a premium version of Fark and requires a $5 monthly fee, whereas Fark is totally free. The advantage of Total fark is that members have an online community and can take part in active and energizing discussions.
They can comment on all posted links, not just the green lit ones.
In fact, the links submitted by this sub-community are not really meant for being green lit and are displayed on Fark but reserved for comment and discussion by Total farkers.
However, they may be green lit if they are particularly interesting, funny or embarrassing. This is particularly useful for you if you are looking at Fark from a social bookmarking perspective. If your blog is about any of the categories which Fark discusses, you can promote it heavily by posting links and inviting comment.
However, you must be careful. Your link must be good quality because the average Farker is intelligent and discerning.
Furthermore, the administrators will soon work out if you are spamming. As mentioned before, there is no substitute for good content to drive traffic to your website, but once you build up credibility for your site, you can be assured that people will visit your website or blog for their daily fix.
Using Fark: Making It Work For You
You sign up for a free account on Fark and create a profile for yourself which is visible to other users. You can upload a picture and write a short bio about yourself, and you should do so, because this is important when trying to build up a community of like minded people to direct to your website. The Fark categories include Not News, Sports, Business, Geek, Showbiz, Politics, Videos and Voting.
So, all of the news and infotainment articles that you could ever hope to read are listed here. Fark describes itself as a new aggregator website and an edited social networking website, which receives about 1800 to 2000 links each day from users.
As suggested earlier, if your aim when using social bookmarking is to get people to visit your blog or website, then you should understand that each day, out of the 2000 odd submissions that Fark receives, only about fifty make it to the main page. So there is a high chance that your submission will not make it.
However, the kind of interaction you are seeking can be found on Total fark. Furthermore, all the submissions that feature on Total fark are archived in their entirety and not just limited to a seven day archive. Total fark also allows for greater interaction and connectivity.
Users can, for example, add other users as ‘favourites'. You can highlight posts made by your friends in any colour you like and of course they can do the same for you. Every time someone ‘favourites' you, it creates a link back to your website. Not only can you ‘favourite’ your friends, but you can also do the same for your favourite posts and links as well.
Fark also has a voting feature where users vote on a particular humorous idea and whether it works or not. This is a great way to get people on your site, that is, if your link makes it to the voting section.
One of the most unusual distinguishing features of Fark is the tags given to the stories by the submitters themselves. They are displayed right next to a cleverly funny headline and carry a link to the actual story, as well as to the forum that is discussing the story. Next to the article you will find a number in parentheses.
This indicates the number of comments that have been made about the story, and the more comments a story gets, the more likely people are to visit
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