TagCloud – The Power of Folksonomy and Tags at Your Fingertips
(Migrated weblog post from LSR)
Yesterday, while I was playing around with the template from elsua, trying to fix an issue with the Blogroll, I thought it was also a good opportunity to add a new feature into my weblog. That new feature is called TagCloud and if you are into Folksonomy, then you will know exactly what it actually does. However, just in case you may not be familiar with it, TagCloud is an automated Folksonomy tool that allows you to categorise collaboratively freely chosen keywords. In this particular case, from my weblog.
So you if take a look into it, down below the template, you will be able to see a number of different keywords that I have been using all along in elsua while I have been creating all the different weblog posts. And the way it works is that the more I get to use a word the larger it will show in the cloud. And whenever you would be clicking on a particular word it will actually be showing all the different related posts where that keyword can be found. This is what in many other contexts it is well known as Tags.
The great thing about tags and Folksonomy is that it is probably one of the most powerful ways to navigate through weblogs in order to find interesting patterns, themes and conversations on particular topics. This is certainly a very powerful collaborative way of building up relationships, since TagCloud, for instance, allows you to gather that list of tags not just from your own weblog but also from a number of weblogs that you may put together.
Thus with this particular offering you will be able to build up multiple clouds with multiple feeds and still be able to manage it all in a very effective and visual way, because as those feeds continue to build up and put forward those key words the clouds will become more and more relevant in how those tags are put together. So you know that whenever you look into a particular cloud you are just looking at the key important items that one of multiple authors may be weblogging about.
Perhaps the biggest example of how tagging works and what effects it has in the Blogosphere is Technorati. However, the great thing about TagCloud is that you can have that same powerful functionality with the tags within the reach of your own weblog since you can have it included as part of your template, however complex that may be, like you can see with elsua. So if you are planning to build up your interests in a number of different weblogs I would strongly recommend that you give TagCloud a try. I am sure you will enjoy the experience of knowing first hand and through an extensive period of time which hot topics are discussed in one particular weblog or in multiple weblogs.
Finally, just wanted to mention that it is a free offering and it would be too bad if you do not give it a try. You cannot imagine how much you can learn about your own weblog -and others- through the usage of such superb offering as TagCloud.
[...] For those people familiar with tagging and folksonomy, from where del.icio.us may be the most representative example, what I am about to post may no come as a surprise but for those folks who may not be familiar with those terms or who may not even have heard about TagCloud this is going to be something really interesting. Now, we all know that with offerings like del.icio.us and TagCloud, as an example, we get the opportunity to tag almost everything there is out there on the Internet. However, there was one single option for which we could not have the possibility of tagging.At least, till now. That option was e-mail. And that offering that changes everything is now called Tagalag. [...]
[...] And, finally, another great feature that I have always enjoyed quite a lot is the fact that I can get to see all of my bookmarks on a specific Tag Cloud: I have been a big fan of tagging (I am already working on a couple of weblog posts on the subject that I will be sharing later on in time) so the fact that BlinkList allows me to have a very graphical display of my bookmarks through tag clouds is a big plus as well. You can see how I have been making extensive use of tags with offerings like TagCloud, Tagalag, so I would not be surprise that this feature, next to the other four that I have mentioned above, would eventually entice me to continue making much more use of BlinkList as opposed to other social bookmarking tools and offerings. [...]