Library clips

Newsweek has incorporated conversation links from Technorati for their articles…what’s going on, the blogosphere supplementing the traditional media (I wonder if they screen the links).

Anyway if you click on the Blog Talk link it takes you to this page (as an example), which shows results from this articles link search in Technorati, but displayed in Newsweek…so it lists posts in the blogosphere talking about this article.
There is a link to create a Watchlist, and a link to view the results in Technorati.

The right sidebar has some additional information:

- Most-blogged about articles on Newsweek within the past 7 days
- Technorati Search box
- Links to phrase search results from Newsweek’s columnists names

Click on Steven Levy and you can view posts indexed by Technorati that have the phrase “Steven Levy”.

[via Read/Write Web]

I just realised del.icio.us about page has a handy bookmarklet to see who bookmarked the page you are on, it’s called “bookmarks from others”.

Another similar tool is “delicious linkbacks“, but instead of taking you to del.icio.us it lists the items in a pop-up box.

I didn’t realise this, but if you are browsing through a users public account on Furl, you can comment on a bookmark.
It is more like sending an email (private message) refering to the bookmark in question, as the comment isn’t published under the bookmark for all to see.

[via Big IDEA]

Big IDEA explains implementing not only tags, but displaying a tag cloud in your Wordpress blog.
Take a look at the side of the Big IDEA blog to see the result, if you click on “see all tags” it takes you to an enormous tagcloud page, also next to every tag is a Technorati and del.icio.us icon.
How cool is that, every internal tag also links to blogosphere categories(Technorati Tags) and to the most popular folksonomy(del.icio.us).

Similar posts:
Wordpress: tags plug-in
Wordpress plugin: subject terms (tags)

MyProgs is a social bookmark manager dedicated to programs…ie. it is a space to keep a list of your programs, and organise them by tag (all tags, and users are public and shareable, making it a folksonomy).

You can combine tags in a search, and all exclude a tag by using the (-) sign…and every tag you browse shows related tags.
Also you can see all users who bookmarked a particular item
…this site is very similar in look and functionality to del.icio.us (aren’t most of them).

Future implementations will be to add more RSS feeds…at the moment there is a main feed, user feeds, but it lacks a user tag level feed, or even a general level tag feed.
Other intended features are exporting, ratings, tag bundles…

It seems these systems are all alike, but recently we are seeing folksonomies specializing in a topic (like this one is supposed to be used only to bookmark programs-as a place for people to share and discover programs, any other type of bookmark I guess would be considered noise or against the intention of this service).

Also, a specialised (topic/discipline based) social bookmark service probably makes it easier to gain a tight little user base…because it is specialised the tags seem to kind of have the upperhand on being more accurate.
That is, the tag “blog” on del.icio.us could refer to anything, but the tag “blog” on MyProgs is going to refer to blog software/program/addons.

BlogBridge has added Connotea to its SmartFeed arsenal.

Finally checked out Threadwatch.org…it’s a communal blog with a great community base (that means great current awareness links)

The content is organised into sections and each section has an RSS feed, along with the main feed.

If you click on a post it will go to the permalink-to the contributors space on threadwatch…here it lists the source and category, you can also send a private message and also comment on a post.

If you click on the authors link you can see an author profile and all their posts…it would be good to offer a feed for every user.

Now you can subscribe to the RSS feed of a BlogPulse Profile…thanks to the hack by Mobileread.

[viaThe Blog Herald]

Odeo is a place to discover podcasts…but it is much more.

You can set up an account, and discover podcasts by browsing the folksonomy.
All channels (blogs or podcast enabled website) are tagged according to users of the system…ie. the actual blog or website is tagged.
Also the posts or shows can be tagged as well…so there are two folksonomies merged into one.

When you click on a tag it shows you a list of channels, and then it also shows a list of shows.

I find this a bit confusing and would rather have the tags split into two panels, one for channels, and one for shows.

When you browse a tag, each item (podcast enabled blog/website) has a list of other tags used to describe it.

Something lacking is that there are no RSS feeds for each tag

…if this was enabled for channels you would be subscribing to a number of blog or website homepages, you would get the latest post/show from that blog/website.
Have to keep in mind that the tag may not accurately describe each post within a channel, the tags are broad as they are describing the blog/website itself, kind of like a description (just like the label you give a folder to group feeds in your RSS reader).
Instead if this was enabled for shows this would be more like the usual subscribing to the feed of a del.icio.us tag (as the tag describes the show/post, this is more accurate or specific)

You can also browse a user, as each channel has a link to the number of subscribers.

The user panel shows: produced channels section (a list of the users own produced podcasts) , and subscriptions to channels
…I can’t see the tags used for each of these channels in the subscription list, and also where is the section for tagged shows.

Each channel (the content provider eg. a blog) has a profile, latest posts, and listening station.
When you find a channel you like, you can subscribe to it, add a comment, or even download a particular show or post (queue)…I guess this is when you tag the channel or tag the specific show.

So I guess this makes it an RSS reader for podcasts (with syncr) managed by tags (creating a podcast feed folksonomy), and also a folksonomy for podcast shows.

Not only that but soon you will be able to create a podcast…this is a powerful tool that has taken all latest social software ideas and put them into a specialised offering

…even though features and functionality are important, they really mean nothing if the content or community base is lacking…good luck to Odeo!

Here is the Odeo blog.

…more

A good idea would be to also show the text version of a podcast, like a transcript.

People have made subscription buttons to put on the sidebar of their blog, which is like another version of their podcast feed (well it links to the profile, then you click on subscribe).

So having your podcast featured on Odeo is like having another version (watered down version) of your blog or website, also it is kind of similar to the promoting of your site like BlogPulse Profiles.

del.icio.us also have tags for audio feeds (including podcasts), they also have RSS feeds (you can even add a tag (+) to the system tag, to make it more specific).

Tagifieds is a service that uses tags to self organise a community bulletin board.

From the website:

“Tagifieds is different from del.icio.us, Flickr, and other tagging sites. These sites are fabulous in their own right, but are designed for very specific types of content (bookmarks and photos, respectively). Tagifieds, on the other hand, is a general-purpose bulletin board. Your posts consist of text and file attachments, which can contain whatever you want.”

So the difference is that the bookmark doesn’t revolve around a link to a web page, the bookmark itself revolves around your own text and images
…so in fact it is more like a post than a bookmark.

It lacks a who else bookmarked this item feature…won’t get as much value out of seeing who else bookmarked the same item, as this service is more geared towards a bulletin board than sharing web link interests.

Tagified is kind of like using pasta with del.icio.us or a service like Tagsurf…more on that here.

This features of this service make it very versatile: use it as a bulletin board (main purpose and function), blog, bookmarks, forum, to-do list, etc…

Features

• Search box for a tag
• Tag stemming
• Popular tags (called related tags)
  refine results by adding or excluding a tag (similar to del.icio.us adding two tags, but del.icio.us can’t exclude a tag)
• Space separated assumes AND, also can use OR, -, parenthesis, wildcards (* - stemming), and price ranges
• Recent tags box (bottom of page) - tag viewing session history
• User name is an automatic tag (”~” prefix)
  these are listed as tags, I think user names should be kept in another list and not mixed with the tag list
• Group feature - also an automatic tag (”#” prefix)
• Permalink tag - this tag is unique to only one item (”@” prefix)
  this way the permatag becomes a direct link to the item, compared to a link of the item which lives somewhere within the tag
• Public or private tags (user and group versions)
• Price tag (”$” prefix)…ha! ha!…had to happen someday!
• Flag an item to report it as spam, add to the “best of” group, etc…
• RSS for any tag set
• Reply to a post - notifies the owner who can email you back
  only other tag service with this feature is Tagsurf…comments in del.icio.us are different as you can’t leave a comment on someones bookmark, you can only comment on the same bookmark if you save it yourself (so in essence comments aren’t really private), this also lacks a notification feature
• Add Attachments/Images to a post or bookmark (whatever you call it)
• Supports HTML mark-up (format your posts)
• Automatic Google Map links by typing in a form.

So this is like a folksonomy for your own authored content rather than bookmarks (this service is geared towards being a bulletin board)

I suppose Tagsurf is more of a folksonomy for a forum or your own authored content, next we’ll see a notesonomy (a folksonomy for notes or quotes)
…I can only see a notesonomy working at a group level, because people wouldn’t really get value out of sharing peronal notes (notes are primarily only valuable to a person who wrote it or to someone or a group who understands the context)…I guess Tagsurf can work this way.

Also read the take on “Holisitic vs. Faceted tagging”…great stuff!

From the website:

“The difference between these approaches lies in the relationship of the tags to the content: in holistic tagging a tag itself is content; in faceted tagging a tag is just an attribute of a separate piece of content.

Tags on 43 Things are holistic: they are life goals that different uses can share. Tags on tagifieds, however, are only aspects of a separate object (a post) that when added up help to describe it. By themselves they are basically useless….My contention is that faceted tagging is best suited to use one-word descriptors that are added up to try to describe a content object. Holistic tagging is best suited to use longer phrases because the tags themselves are charged with more responsibility.”

[via Library Stuff]