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May 16, 2005
Keeping track with tags
The blogosphere is abuzz with tagging, and I've been doing some homework on the subject. Just what are tags, how should we use them and how can they help us?
Tags are also referred to as folksonomies. BusinessWeek says "Blogger Thomas Vander Wal coined the word "folksonomy," a combination of the words folk and taxonomy, to describe this joint work."
Tags are ways to categorize blogs and other web sites in two ways: 1. so other users can find your tags when looking for a subject and 2. so you can keep track of subjects you're interested in.
If you have a blog and it pings Technorati when you add a new post, Technorati automatically takes your blog categories and converts them into tags.
You also can add tags to each post (for example, see "blogging" at the end of this entry).
Once you add that blogging tag, anyone looking at the Technorati tag "blogging" will see this entry.
The other way to use tags are to bookmark them to follow an area of interest. For example, Constantin Basturea has a tag called prdigest at del.icio.us. He tags blogs and other sites that have interesting news he thinks people interested in public relations would follow.
Here are some sites where you can create and track tags.
Other resources:
- BusinessWeek article on tagging.
- A blog on tagging.
- How to use tags at Technorati and del.icio.us.
update: The Toronto Star has an article on tags.
Tags:
Posted by at May 16, 2005 11:50 AM
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» Blogging Articles from Denali Flavors
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Tracked on May 18, 2005 09:09 AM
Comments
You might also find the new group blog on tagging (You're It!) helpful.
Posted by: Mike Manuel at May 16, 2005 08:20 PM
