social bookmarking soulmate

Let me introduce you to my soulmate. That is, my long-lost, web2.0-loving, internet-surfing, classicial-music-blogging, Diigo-using soulmate. Her/his name is Philharmania.

I know what you’re thinking.
“Gosh, she doesn’t even know her soulmate’s gender??”
But let me reassure you, our social bookmarking relationship goes beyond the meager social construct you call gender. This is internet love.

Unsurprisingly, Philharmania primarily bookmarks topics about music. Their top five tags read (from top to bottom) as such:

1. "review" (as in music reviews)
2. "classical"
3. "jpc" (an acronym for "Jazz Pop Classical," a German music sharing website)
4. "musicweb"
5. "music"

Philharmania is undoubtedly, unabashedly a music nerd.

As a social bookmarker, though, Philharmania is losing their touch. They have not bookmarked a single Mozart fan club site since March 2007, and of their 747 public bookmarks hardly any of them have comments. Apparently, Philharmania had a lot to listen to but not much to say.

It's a shame the classical music bookmarking army has lost Philharmania from their ranks. When s/he was active s/he served well, bookmarking several times a week. Perhaps one day Philharmania will be rescued from a deserted island, where s/he lived for the past two years without internet, hiding from pop music terrorists, and all will be at peace in the bookmarking world once more.

For now, though, we must find solace in their dated, but not out-dated, tags. I came across an excellent website among Philharmania's bookmarks called Andante. Subtitled "everything classical," the site offers the classical music affectionado a discussion forum, online articles, book reviews, cd reviews, concert reviews, and even streaming music.

Also one of Philharmania's fabulous finds is a website called Essentials of Music. A wonderful "how-to" for classical music beginners, the site contains historical information about music periods, biographical information of famous composers and a classical music glossary of over 200 terms, musical examples included.

While some of Philharmania's bookmarks are location specific (Philharmania is a UK native) and cannot be accessed by American browsers, the majority of their bookmarks are both accessible and useful. While these tags do not usually link to scholarly articles or important pieces of classical music literature, if you're looking for file-sharing sites, a classical music chat forum or a NY Times article about David Lynch, Philharmania knows where to take you.