PUBLIC MARKS from Morgaine with tag blog

It is what it is. For all the lonely times you may have in the years ahead, know we will be doing everything we can to saturate your life with the comraderie of others. For the times when there will only be your parents on the other side of the dinner table, know that we will do everything in our power to expand your view of your world. No, this wasn't the original plan. But that doesn't mean that the reality will be any less amazing. If ever there was a child who was dreamed of, and then came true - it was you. You are loved, you are enough, we are enough. We are a family.

The people in white coats rubbed you, measured you, and wrapped you cozy in a blanket. Then your dad grabbed you up. I was almost able to register your birth before falling into the black place. Your dad held you militantly at my side. The hovering white coats, eager to finish their protocols, just had to wait until I was stable before your dad consented to leave my side. Because, he was never about to leave yours. Hours later, when I woke up in Recovery, your dad brought you to me again. Finally, we met. I smelled you and touched you and memorized your face. It was primal, instinct, necessary. We imprinted on each other. For a long, long time the three of us rested on that bed together quietly, the way we still do so often, as a family. It was the beginning.

I was 20 years old, and I was standing in court. The man over there, who was 24, was up on battery charges. And I was the complainant. I was the one who’d been battered. The charges were read, and the Judge asked him – did he do it? And the accused man never looked at me. He elocuted: Yes. I am guilty. I punched her, and kept her in my apartment, and wouldn’t let her go. And even after I was arrested, and out on bail, I found her where she was hiding. I found her and slapped her for leaving me. And the Judge, a beautiful dark man with blue eyes, looked down and pronounced judgment. And it was over.

It takes a lot to make me rethink my place in this city, and even more to make me question my very existence. But lately, irrational social fears are keeping me up at night. Something is going horribly wrong, and I have finally traced the problem to its source: blogs.

Why do some weblogs attract large numbers of readers while others operate with near invisibility? Why do the same weblogs get linked to time and time again?

We benefit from folksonomies as the both the personal vocabulary and the social aspects help people to find and retain a tether to objects on the web that are an interest to them. Who is doing the tagging is important to understand and how the tags are consumed is an important factor. This also helps us see that not all tagging is a folksonomy, but is just tagging. Tagging in and of its self is a helpful step up from no tagging, but is no where near as beneficial as opening the tagging to all. Folksonomy tagging can provide connections across cultures and disciplines (an knowledge management consultant can find valuable information from an information architect because one object is tagged by both communities using their own differing terms of practice). Folksonomy tagging also makes up for missing terms in a site's own categorization system/taxonomy. This hopefully has made things a little clearer for all in our understanding the types of folksonomies and tagging and the benefits that can be derived.

Then I started thinking: since Flickr and Del.icio.us and Technorati are encouraging everyone to tag their content, it follows that the tag-aware RSS reader will be the next step. I should be able to browse through the stream that my RSS reader has captured using the tags assigned to the individual entries.

This is a introductory guide to "tags" on Technorati, the blogosphere search engine, which started using them in mid-January 2005. It's a practical introduction rather than a tutorial (ending with some personal thoughts about tags), but I'll summarise the basics about Technorati tags and how to use them in your own blog posts - stuff I've learned from digging around, playing around and, as you'll see later, much tearing out of hair.

Which are the best and most effective ways to make your blog or independent news site return a profit?