Week #6 - things #10, 11, 12 - Tagging and Folksonomies

thing #10 Tagging and Del.icio.us

Okay, now we're talking or tagging or meta tagging. And as you will see from this week's lesson, there's lots to talk and tag about... are you still reading? Here goes ...

Welcome to the world of taxonomy!

I come from a background in news research and archiving. I used SLA tagging of newspaper articles and photos for internal archives. A great resource for deadline reporting, statistics charts, and photo montages. I have also dabbled in metatagging.

Check out my work at: www.projo.com.
I tweaked page titles, navigation bar subject tabs' keywords and descriptions.

Search Engine Optimization is your opportunity to get your "stuff" found and read or viewed. Writing and images get their chance to be seen and heard. Here's where you can put yourself at the top of the list.

Speaking from an English major's point of view, it's all about using the right words.

You want your writing to be read by many people, whether it be for entertainment, education, self-fulfillment, self-aggrandizement or money-making. One way of doing this is to tag your "stuff" with keywords that explain your message and catalog it in such a way that the search engines perk up and take notice and put you at the top.

Tagging is like putting your best foot forward in an interview (wear the suit) or a first date (put on the lipstick).

Make that great first impression - make yourself figuratively pretty!

It's all about competition, baby!

In doing so, people will find your website over another's, along with your advertisers, and everyone is happy. There is quite a science to this and it's always changing. The goal is to get yourself to the top of that 1st page of search results.

Climb that ladder taggers.


You are at the search engine's mercy unless searchers find you on their own. So you can kiss search engine spider's butt or take the chance that you have chosen the right words to get your searchers' attention. You have to put yourself in the mind of the common searcher not the advanced searcher. This is a challenge for trained librarians / researchers.

Stay strong writers, editors, photographers, librarians ... the 2 worlds can come together intelligently.

Del.icio.us - this idea of info-sharing is greatly welcomed. Organized tagging saves so much time and frustration. Why waste your time when someone has already found what you need? Thank you librarians!!

Info-gatherers can be territorial and possessive. However, when they work together, they learn new things, save time and ultimately find the accurate/legitimate info they need for their "customers."

It's not that you need to know everything - you just need to know where to find it!

thing #11 Technorati

Well, it is highly improbable that I have gotten Technorati's attention or that I want it for my blog, for that matter. Perhaps if I had a blog of more cutting edge info, they would stand up and notice me. But since I am only spitting out diary homework assignments, I will refrain from trying to get the spiders' attention.

I have had experience in working with tagging and metadata to improve a dying newspaper's footprint on the web. The old-school side of me didn't want to sell out to search engine spiders but the new-school side of me found it a challenge to get their attention and take advantage of what technology offered.

Just a FYI - Had a where's Waldo? moment on the Technorati page. The instructions didn't tell me to click the Technology tab to find "Rising Blog posts by Attention." Okay, I'm back.


Rising blog posts by attention as of 5/04/09:

Trent Reznor Responds To Apple: You Want Obscene, I’ll Show You Obscene

Xbox 360 Propaganda For Japan [Only In Japan]

AT&T picks up Acer Aspire One 10.1″ netbook; available from Costco on May 11th

Amazon press event Wednesday: See you and the bigger Kindle then

Nokia's flagship N97 gets its own website, pre-order link ($699?)

Dumpsters pool

Trent Reznor rips Apple, rates smartphone OSes

Rising news posts by attention

Publishers Nurture Rivals to Kindle

Engadget SlashGear DVICE Amazon Crude

Exposing Liberal Media Bias Does Linux Suck?

The Burgeoning Momentum Behind Unified Communications

The Irony of Failure: Apple, Microsoft ... and Google?

Apple's Changes Can't Rattle These Bones

VoIP Provider Vonage Dodges State USF Fee in Nebraska, for Now

Finding Space for All in Our Crowded Seas

Some Facebook programs will go 'off-site'

Food-safety labs get FDA up to speed

In my opinion, the blog posts have a gossipy / entertainment-slanted news edge while the news stories are closer to my heart. I trust the headlines more in the newspaper and journal/magazine posts. Old journalistic habits die hard.

The blogs and news' drop down menus have both competing for attention in the list. Their rankings are different as well.

Tags from what’s rising

What bloggers are saying now

60 minutes affect all and cellphones compatibility crowded dating facebook finding for free in like our seas space tech technologies twitter

Blogger Central - top tags of the day:

free
business
guardian.co.uk
news
sport
nba
football
middle east
in
premier league

All I can say is ugh....

Folksonomy -

Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com
Darryle Pollack called her first blog "I Never Signed Up For This" in honor of all the times she has said those words at some point in her life- as a mother, breast cancer survivor, artist, chocoholic, former TV journalist ...

Tags: Soft, International, Propaganda, Power, Diplomacy, Breast Cancer, Persuasion, cancer survivor

These are at least better tags than the top tags of the day but still somewhat vague ... this is a challenge when I come from using industry specific keyword lists (e.g.; crimes-murder, crimes-arson, crimes-robbery....) Well, you get my idea.

The tag search for "libraries" turned up pretty good results. The postings seem educational and informative. The "what's going on" in the library world. Yea!! Taggers aren't using the "libraries" tag needlessly.

Accuracy in blog directory categories vs. searching tags

Survey says .... (my survey, that is) Can you tell I'm tired and should probably stop?. There's always tomorrow to blog .... but I must ...

Well, the blog directory was a letdown.

And the libraries - research - info category is where? tsk, tsk, tsk. Maybe they need a librarian to index their site? Hmmmmm.....

And a link to the site map would be nice.:)

Well, I've tired of Technorati or it has tired me. Either way - good night.



part #12 Web 2.0 & Library 2.0 - the future of libraries

Are we there yet? Very long things in this week #6. Whew.

My thoughts on the perspectives on Library 2.0. From the articles I read and the video I saw (read?) on Youtube, it was refreshing to see that the librarians of the Library 2.0 slant are willing to learn and share new info. Some words and phrases that come to mind are: change is good, patience on both sides, hopeful, receptive, unthreatened, anticipatory, not info gatekeepers but door openers, reinvention, never stop learning, be curious.

I am lucky that I work in an environment that supports this kind of "change" and has the means to make it happen. This is not true everywhere. Due to restrictions of budget and staff and also resistance to change, other libraries have fallen behind and become victims of the same technology that 2.0 promotes.

I found the annoyed librarian blog very amusing. I do agree and find it sad that a 2.0 concept has to exist. Isn't it the sharing of knowledge that draws librarians to their profession in the first place? It is unfortunate that librarians have to be reminded of what their job is: to help people. If that means to learn something new, explain it in a new way, present it in a different format, preserve it, then that's what you do.

If librarians and libraries don't reinvent themselves, they will fall by the wayside like newspapers. And that would be a huge loss. We need to document ourselves accurately as a culture in some way, however self-serving that may be. We were here!

To the figuratively shy librarian: Undo the stereotypical bun, take off the glasses and step out of the shadows!