Stuart, I'm interested in your statement that newsletters are becoming outdated. I'd LOVE to not do one but am told by everyone and their uncle that websites MUST have them to bring readers back to the site. Say more. And if a site doesn't have one, how else to bring readers back?
On the other hand, I totally agree that e-books are OUT. Who expects to have to pay for on-line info anymore?

It's an interesting point Susan. On one hand there are two newsletters that I subscribe to that I couldn't live without - and the only reason I couldn't is because the info is not available elsewhere. However, while I receive these newsletters I can't remember ever clicking a link to go back to the site that produced it.

As online users become more savvy (and less likely to have their inboxes filled with subscription emails) they will expect more data to be fed through RSS.

Basically newsletters are old technology that will fade like horse-drawn carriages once people understood motor cars.

How webmasters deal with that change (now that we're finally getting a handle on how useful newsletters were) will be the dilemma for the future.

Ah, I suspected you were thinking about feeds surpassing newsletters, and I agree - once everyone figures them out. Honestly, I haven't figured them out myself yet but plan to ask my geek friends for help about them soon.

As always, a wonderfully thought provoking post, Stuart. Who would have thought even five years ago that we'd be using the Net as such a vital tool--I've used t to research for a long time, but not to the extent I use it now

Stuart,

Social bookmarking is yet to come to gardening? I think it came a couple years ago but just isn't being highly adopted.

I use del.icio.us. (http://del.icio.us/debra.roby) and I notice you use technorati. I like del.iciou.us better for storing all my bookmarks, but I'm starting to use sk*rt to mark articles as useful (think digg without the teenage-boy prejudice). While I don't have many gardening bookmarks stored on my site, I can search the entire site for what I'm interested in. In the search box, I type in something basic like: growing onions. After searching everybody's bookmarks, I find 20 different sites saved in other people's bookmarks. I see that 2 people have saved the first link: http://growingonions.blogspot.com/2007/08/growing-onions-best-reason-for-doing-it.html
but that several people have linked to the organic gardening article on growing food from your scraps.

I can visit these people's home page and see what else they have bookmarked under gardening (or other topics I might be interested in). I can choose to save their bookmarks to my file.

Better yet, I can save all my bookmarks online and never have to worry again about losing them when my hard drive crashes.

Check out how Elise Bauer has used this tool to organize all the material on her blog.

And don't forget social networks (facebook, pownce, etc.) To me your list of tools seems a bit "old fashioned" still.

Yes, RSS feeds are the way to bring content to the reader (though it may not bring readers back to a website if the owner requires that. Limited feeds might address that issue).

Sorry, I seem to running on here... but the mash-up of "hands on" activities like gardening and Web 2.0 is my "specialty!"

Fair comments Debra. In response to your comment re: my list of tools seem a bit old fashioned - I am in total agreement.

However, as you highlighted that social bookmarking is not well adopted by many gardeners I would expand that comment by stating that very few ONLINE TOOLS are being used by gardeners.

Hence the basic level of this post.

I've just read your follow up post and think it is beneficial to gardeners but only works for those who at least have an understanding of the points I've mentioned here.

My comments re: social bookmarking are that there is not a designated site that most gardeners use. You mentioned del.icio.us and my use of technorati but then there is also StumbleUpon, myBlogLog and others. Which one will gardeners use as their default and become the standard for garden enthusiasts? Time will tell.

Thanks for your tips. I agree with you. Home gardeners have new possibilities in today's world and they are searching the web for the tips. There are so many different aspects of gardening and so many tips for everyone. They also provide Garden tools which are very helpful in getting the work done efficiently; it also makes the work easier to be completed.
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Sarah
Social Bookmarking

I have just started the gardening, I am very good in searching something online, but still many times I am unable to find the right solution, I want info on DIY tools for gardening , online sources told by you will help me a lot, visit you soon to read more new tips.