There has been some talk of late about using tags to file blog posts, since most blog software doesn’t come with tag functionality people having been integrating the features from social bookmark services which seems to be doing the trick.
Most noteably is the Raw Sugar search box with directory links, and del.icio.us tagrolls…the expert in this field seems to be top blogger hacker, John, from FreshBlog.
Since del.icio.us doesn’t have an exported search box (or full-text search), and Raw Sugar doesn’t have an exported tag cloud I’m looking for a site that does both, so I asked what Simpy do, since they are a great contender.
Otis from Simpy pointed me to a website that uses the Simpy API to do just what I asked, only if Simpy offered this as a service for us non-techies…more on the API.
Anyway this blog doesn’t use Simpy to bookmark its blog posts, but it does use Simpy for general bookmarking, and intergrates it into the blog…from this example there is no reason why you can’t use this implementation of Simpy to bookmark your blog posts.
If you view the blog in question you can see a tag cloud generated from Simpy, and also a search box, exactly what I want to do in my blog, but wait there is more.
If you do a search or click on a tag from the tag cloud the results are shown within the blog, this is amazing, so now you can point your tags to an external site like Simpy, Technorati will still pick it up ( as long as you use rel=tag), and you are not pushing users away from your site as you can view results from the tag cloud within your site and not at Simpy.
Another notable is SamBot, who has a great post on the value of tags within blogs…the first comment on this post, by Lorelle, mentions the difference between local tags and external tags, and keeping people on your site.
Here are some great posts from Lorelle’s blog:
Categories versus Tags - What’s the Difference and Which One?
(explains that tags are not a replacement to categories, they are complementary…great, realistic explanation)
Adding Technorati Tags to WordPressMU Sites
(blog posts pointing to related posts at Technorati tags, and pointing to related posts within your blog)
A Tagging Bookmarklet for WordPress and wordpress.com Users
(making the bookmarking process easier)
It seems Technorati Tags will also collect Lorelle’s local tags like they collect her categories, as the rel=tag information in included.
So when Technorati see her blog it seems they will harverst posts in the categories, local tags, and Technorati Tags.
Now my next question is how would Lorelle implement a tagcloud from her local tags, for the sidebar of her blog…they are at the end of every post, but what about aggregating them in a tag cloud.
What I’d like to have at the end of every blog post:
- Standard categories
(well these live at the top of all my posts)
- Local tags
(using Lorelle’s mention of the code the points to your own blog, including the rel=tag, see below)
<a href=”index.php?s=wordpress+backup” rel=”tag”>wordpress backup</a>
<a href=”index.php?s=blogging” rel=”tag”>blogging</a>
(I would also like to aggregate these local tags into a tag cloud for the sidebar of my blog)
- Technorati Tags
(I technically wouldn’t need Technorati Tags, since I would use the rel=tag, they would harvest my local tags and categories, but if users want to see like posts in the blogosphere, providing these links at the end of each post will take them directly from my post)
- del.icio.us
(I would point to the general tags at del.icio.us, but in order to do this I need to bookmark each post in a del.icio.us account, actually I wouldn’t really need to do this, as my post technically doesn’t need to be bookmarked in del.icio.us, the idea is to see like posts at del.icio.us)
According to an earlier post, these last 2 points (Technorati Tags, del.icio.us) wouldn’t be required as Stowe from Corante mentions, the ideal situation is for taggregators to trackback you, listing the information back to their site, instead of you doing all the work.