For my Management of Social Media class, one of my assignments is to compare two similar social media technologies. While the example given was social bookmarking, and I'm generally loathe to just follow the example, the Delicious/Pinterest dichotomy came straight to mind. I couldn't not write about this--I have too much to say, though I promise to keep it short.

I am an avid user of Pinterest (click here to check out my boards!) and have been since December 2010. I love that it's visual--there are so many beautiful and inspiring images! I could (and have) literally scrolled through pages for hours. The visual nature is especially nice because most of my pins are food. Curtis and I regularly plan our meals based on what we've seen on Pinterest lately (he has a great set of boards too). And nothing ruins a great recipe like a lack of a photo!

The only problem with Pinterest's visual MO is that if you have a page you want to save that doesn't have a picture, you can't pin it to your boards. I mean, apparently you can, but that's a weird cheater way. For this reason, Delicious is better for saving non-large-photo pages.

The other thing I like better about Delicious is that you can have private stacks. Pinterest does not (yet) have an option to create a private board for your eyes only, which is kind of a pain if you're wanting to pin Christmas gift ideas or other secrets. Apparently they're "thinking about" adding a private option, but we'll see. For now, all my secret bookmarks are on Delicious.

I could go on and on about the merits of each site, but what do y'all think? Do you use one or both of these? Which do you prefer?