Library clips

FirstStop Blog mentions that multiple social bookmark managers have been included in the FirstStop websearch (you can download a free standard edition)

You can now use the meta-search facility to search bookmarks in Furl, Spurl, and CiteULike.

Haven’t tried it myself…bit lazy to download the search engine.

[via loose wire]

In an earlier post I was mentioning using del.icio.us as the subject terms for this blog instead of using Technorati.

Well, if you use Wordpress, vapourtrails.ca » Jerome’s Keywords Plugin does exactly what I was mentioning, but you don’t need to use del.icio.us at all.

Just like in-built categories for your blog you can now have in-built subject terms/keywords/tags (whatever you want to call it).

You can even put the popular tags on the sidebar, or better still link to a page of your tags, as a tag cloud…see here.

Inspired by The Community Engine blog and one of my earlier posts, I’m keen to add tags to my blog as well as having categories…the tags would act as subject terms.

I’m doing this as my categories aren’t as effective for retrieval as they were in the beginning, as my content is now increasing, and I don’t want to add to my list of categories as it takes up too much space (and I can’t get it to work as a drop-down menu).

Although I’m finding Google as an excellent tool to find my blog posts
eg. gataga inurl:libraryclips.blogsome.com
(I find I can leave out the blogsome.com bit and it is still precise, I don’t even really have to use the inurl: bit most of the time - this depends on the ambiguity of your blog name).

At the moment Google has indexed a post that is 4 days old, so I have 3 days of my latest posts that are not indexed by Google yet
(I guess that’s where pinging an RSS/Blog engine, and the World Live Web come to play…but at the same time, having the Google toolbar installed makes it so easy to search anything).

Anyway, I want my categories to be broad headings, and my tags to be specific subject terms.

So at the end of every blog post I will list the subject terms (tags)

…but I don’t want these to point to Technorati, I want them to point to a tag/s in my del.icio.us account.

The problem is that this is a manual process, compared to pointing to Technorati, as I have to bookmark the post at my del.icio.us account straight after publishing the post

…the good thing is that when I enter the URL/s for my subject terms at the end of my blog post, even if it is a new tag to my del.icio.us account, I can make up the URL even though that tag hasn’t any bookmarks yet.
ie. the URL still exists devoid of containing any bookmarks.
(So once I’ve published my post, I don’t have to go back to edit anything).

Now if I’m doing this (posting) several times a day I need an automated tool, like those developed for Technorati tags; a bookmarklet, where I can fill in the tag name/s in a few boxes and it will automatically write the HTML at the end of my blog post (with the tags pointing to my del.icio.us account).

Next, is just pure automation, Bud Gibson also mentions in his post:

“…it would seem possible to write a plug-in solution for weblogging software that would automatically post weblog entries to social bookmarking repositories that shared this api.”

In this case, I would be achieving what I want to do, with hardly any extra effort at all.

So my subject terms would be in my del.icio.us account (the del.icio.us account has the same name as the blog) under a bundle called “Subject Terms”, this bundle is represented as a tag cloud (a subject term list with added meaning).
I could also include tags, that are the same as my blog category names, and put these under a bundle heading called “Categories”…this way you can also view a tag cloud of my blog categories.

In the end, my del.icio.us account is a title index of my blog, browsable by date or tag (from a choice of category tags or subject terms tags).

This can be a link on the sidebar of a blog…or even incorporate the tag cloud in your blog sidebar, or in a post…see here.

I don’t envy myself going back and re-indexing all my blog content…maybe I’ll sit on this one for the moment.

When is del.icio.us going to cache pages so we can search full-text, as well as search title/description, as well as by tag…heck why not have a drop-down menu so you can choose your method of search.

At the moment I have a folder in my Furl account that contains the whole of my delicious account, that way I can search the full-text of my delicious bookmarks.

Anyway to the focus of my post….

RSS feed for a delicious bundle heading

This way you can subscribe to multiple tags instead of re-mixing them via a Blogdigger Group or any other of the re-mixing tools.

Also if you added or deleted a tag in your bundle then you would have to do the same at your Blogdigger Group…whereas if there was an RSS feed for a delicious bundle heading then the feed would automatically recognise if you have added or deleted a feed.

…and more

Also it would be good to be able to cut n’ paste the code of your bundle into a blog.

A tool like extisp.icio.us only allows this at the user name level, whereas as I want a tag cloud at a sub-level (ie. only for a select number of tags).

…and by a tag cloud I mean the tag cloud you see on your del.icio.us page, not a tagcloud of computer processed keywords, like tagcloud (just to be confusing).

HubLog: HubMed Tag Storage mentions that the famous alternate interface (HubMed) for PubMed now has incorporated tags for items of interest…and these tags can be shared in a folksonomy.

This is the wave of things to come…journal databases with an alternative way to browse items, and also now being able to share items…especially with tools, like Freetag, where you can integrate a folksonomy into your website.

I guess it’s like having a version of del.icio.us specified and incorporated into a journal database.

So now you can search by the MESH subject terms (thesaurus, subject field) or by the folksonomy user-defined terms…take your pick.

Although, it is not a replacement for the subject field, as the folksonomy only contains items that have been tagged (so it’s not exhaustive, especially in its infancy).

Since HubMed already has feeds in tracking search queries, it will too have feeds to track tags and maybe users.

It is so easy to track a tag or a user to keep up with the lastest…instead of/as well as doing the SDI yourself (feeds for search queries), just track a user or a tag

…the additional thing, as in any social bookmark tool, is that you can share a tag to store items of interest to an informal group (I wonder if future offerings will have formal groups).

Great stuff!…sharing and discovery…a collaboration tool that induces the advancement of knowledge.

What I mean is that with these social tools you are compelled to organise your own mini-collection of stuff (your own database of articles you like, that you can store, organise, and retrieve - without these tools you might not have bothered..it’s so easy now).

The bonus is that everyone can see everyone elses collection…so now we are collecting and sharing in a more formalised and easier way

…whereas before-hand, sharing was only a “push” scenario, where you send someone an email pointing to a link…now it’s a “pull” scenario, as anyone can browse your tags or your account, you don’t even know they are discovering something because of your input.

…and also by default you are contributing to an emerging vocabulary….all these things are happening as a result of you bookmarking and tagging an item…powerful stuff!

So now we are not only discovering information from the journal database itself, but we can also discover contents without going to the journal database itself…we can discover contents from the general folksonomy (tag level or user level).

Browsing a folksonomy is different than browsing a journal database (the contents is portioned in different ways - by tag, by user), you are going to come across items you usually wouldn’t see in your traditional search approach (there is a lot more chance for serendipity), so it is an add-on tool that augments the experience, and is not seen as a replacement.

I also find a difference in the longevity of the discovery path.

In journal databases, you can consult the terms from a thesaurus, and use them in the search query.
The results may also suggest some related terms, and if you find an article you like, check out the subject terms applied to that article, and then try those terms to find more relevant stuff…the emphasise is on findability.

The above description also applies to a folksonomy…some additions are that, when you find an item:

• you can also view other tags applied to this item (common tags)
• also view a users account to see if they have more articles you may be interested in (clicking on the tags of a users account will lead to more discovery; more users, and more tags)
• or click on a URL and see the common tags and users accounts who have bookmarked that page
• view items according to a date
• see more

…and you can keep clicking and clicking on your discovery path

…of course you can be side-tracked, a la surfing the web, but then folksonomies aren’t just about finding, they are about learning and discovery.