Here is the audio from the breakout session on Structured Blogging.

Syndicate-Structure.mp3

On the panel were:

Jen Consalvo - AOL
Eli Chapman - Mediatronica
Constantine Gus Spathis - PubSub
Chad Dickerson - Yahoo
Scott Abel - The Content Wrangler

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Stowe gives Toby Bloomberg a gentle nudge to start tagging. When Toby and I met last week in Atlanta we talked about tagging. One of Toby's concern was that blogging and the tools used to create blogs are becoming too complicated.

To paraphrase (please correct me if I got this wrong Toby): Blogs started out at these easy things to use, but once the web geeks got a hold of things they started to get complicated. Add a feature here and a feature there and it's no longer a simple tool.

I agree with her. All I need to do is look over the list of plugins and hacks I have installed on MovableType. There will always be the simple tools like Blogger but MT is becoming quite the little CMS tool.

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Elizabeth is fed up with tagging. She says, "Tagging is too much work." In the past few weeks I have had a number of conversations with people who share the same opinion.

Like many TypePad users, Elizabeth is limited in tagging solutions. Yes you can use your categories to tag your content, but anything further requires inserting the proper HTML into your posts.

Moving to MovableType or WordPress is the best option, but not always feasible. A few months ago I documented how I can easily tag my posts within MT.

I know that tagging my posts has led to increased traffic from Technorati and other search tools that support tags. Granted it is very easy for me include them in my posts.

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Fred Wilson describes why Posting, Subscribing and Tagging are the three things that blogging is all about for him. It's all part of the new read/write web (you know Richard MacManus has done a good job branding himself when you can't write read/write without thinking of him)

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A few friends have been having some issues including Technorati tags in their blogs so I thought I would put together a how-to of what I've done.

The simple modifications I have made to my MovableType software makes sure that any tags I include are quickly indexed by Technorati and other services that utilize tags. Using Blogger? Richard Massoner sent me a link to a Greasemonkey script that helps put tags in Blogger.com blogs.

Common Mistakes

- Include Tags in Your Post (RSS): The tags must be included in the post and not just a part of your blog template. That's the problem that MindComet has with their blog. They've just listed the tags on the blog template and not the individual post. Only content that is part of your post is included in your RSS feed. Items that are part of your blog template are not included in your RSS feed.

- Publish Full Text in RSS: If you are not including the full text of your post in your RSS feed the blog index tools will not see your tags. This is because most people put the tag code at the end of the post which is often not included in a partial feed.

- Failure to Ping: You have your tags coded correctly, you're publishing a full text feed but still nothing? You might not be pinging the blog index tools each time you publish a new post. If you are using MovableType of TypePad your blog should be configured to automatically ping Technorati. If you are unsure you can always use Ping-o-Matic!

- Technorati is Not the Only Game in Town: There are other blog search tools that are starting to use tags. IceRocket is another blog search that you can ping with your tagged posts.

Background Info

You can review Technorati's help page on Tags to get the basics. The two most important items are:

1. Including the proper code in your RSS feed or blog post
2. Pinging the blog index such as Technorati

Failure to do both of these will result in your tags not being indexed. Every time a friend contacts me with an issue it's because they have a problem with one of those items.

Continue reading "How-To Include Tags in Your MovableType Blog" »

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CNN has picked up the AP tagging story that Steve Rubel mentioned on Sunday. As of 7:30 am Thursday morning it is on the home page under 'Technology' and is titlted 'Tagging' helps unclutter data

The article mentions del.icio.us, flickr, Technorati and 43 Things.

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