Thing 4 -- Technorati

So now that you’ve been blogging for awhile, you might be wondering just how big is the blogosphere? Well according to San Francisco based Technorati, the leading search tool and authority for blogs, there are “over 175,000 new blogs (that’s just blogs) every day. Bloggers update their blogs regularly to the tune of over 1.6 million posts per day, or over 18 updates a second.” Technorati currently tracks 112 million blogs. Yes, these numbers are astounding, but as you’ve already seen for yourselves, blogging is so easy that these publishing tools are being taken advantage of by almost every industry, including libraries. There are a lot of features in Technorati including the capability to search for keywords in blog posts, search for entire blog posts that have been tagged with a certain keyword, limit a search by language, or search for blogs that have been registered and tagged as whole blogs about a certain subject (like photography or libraries).

Homework Activities:

• Take a look at Technorati Search and try doing a keyword search for library related topics in Blog posts, in tags and in the Blog Directory. Search for libraries, school libraries, library 2.0, and other search terms. Are the results different?
• Explore popular blogs, searches and tags. Is anything interesting or surprising in your results?
• Explore the sections such as Politics, Front Page, and Technology. How could you use this in your personal searches? ...searches for library related content?
• Find some interesting blogs on this site (i.e. library sites, technology sites, etc.). Favorite a few. Add some of them to your Bloglines account if they are something you'd like to read on a regular basis.
• Create a blog post, on your blog, about your discoveries on this site. "Thing #4 -- Technorati".

If you want more (optional, advanced):

You may be interested in blogging after we are done with our class; perhaps on something you like such as gardening, quilting, etc. So how do you get your blog listed as part of the blogosphere and how can you tag your posts with keywords to make them more findable through a Technorati search? The answer to the first question is that your blog is probably already being captured by Technorati due to the fact that you’re already using Blogger, the most popular blogging tool. But if you want to join the party and have your blog officially listed on Technorati and also take advantage of the watchlist and other features, you’ll need to claim your blog yourself.

As for tagging posts with Technorati tags? This is easy too. All you need to do is add a little bit of HTML code to the bottom of your post (see example below) and Technorati will pick up these tags when it spiders (or web crawls) your site.

If you're up for a challenge, learn how to tag your posts with Technorati tags so they can become part of Technorati tag searches. Create a post about something. It can be anything you want and add the HTML code to the bottom to tag it as “LibraryLearning2.0.” You may also want to consider claiming your blog and creating a watchlist. NOTE: When adding HTML code, you'll want to make sure you're in Blogger's Edit HTML window. There's a lot to explore.

Thing #3 -- RSS

You’ve heard of RSS? You’ve seen those small funny tags on websites? You’ve heard co-workers and acquaintances swear by it, but still have no idea what RSS is?

In the information world, RSS is not only changing the way news, media and content creators share information, but it also is swiftly changing the way everyday users are consuming information.

RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication” and is a file format for delivering regularly updated information over the web.

Just think about the websites and news information sources you visit every day. It takes time to visit those sites and scour the ad-filled and image-heavy pages for just the text you want to read, doesn't it? Now imagine if you could visit all those information sources and web pages in just one place and all at the same time … without being bombarded with advertising… without having to search for new information on the page you’d already seen or read before… and without having to consume a lot of time visiting each site individually. Would that be valuable to you? Well, it’s available now through a newsreader and RSS.

This week’s discovery exercises focus on learning about RSS news feeds and setting up a Bloglines account (a free online newsreader) for yourself to bring your feeds together.

Discovery Resources:

• Watch the CommonCraft video, RSS in Plain English:

CNET Video: RSS – Feel the Need for Feeds (3:32) – a good over view of what RSS is and the benefits to users.

What is RSS? A good text review of Really Simple Syndication.

Using Bloglines Tutorial (how to keep up with dozens of blogs everyday) – This online tutorial walks you through how to setup a Bloglines account and add newsfeeds. Follow Steps 1 to 3 to set up your Bloglines account. Steps 4 – 9 are optional and cover how to subscribe to different types of feeds (podcasts, Flickr albums, etc).

Homework Activity:

1. Follow the discovery resources above to learn more about RSS and newsreaders.


2. Create a free online Bloglines account for yourself and subscribe to at least ten (10) newsfeeds and blogs to your reader. See Using Bloglines Tutorial steps 1-3 for instructions.


3. Subscribe to several of your class participants' feeds. This is as easy as typing the blog URL into the subscribe field in Bloglines. Try it, it's easy!


4. Create a post in your blog about this exercise. Optional: If you're up to the challenge, you can provide the URL address to your public bloglines account.

Don’t know what to blog about? Think about these questions:

• What do you like about RSS and newsreaders?
• How do you think you might be able to use this technology in your work or personal life?
• How can libraries use RSS or take advantage of this technology?

If you want more:

1. Set up an account in Google Reader. If you like it better than Blogline, write a post on the differences.
2. Try Pageflakes, Netvibes, or iGoogle. All allow you to set up a homepage whereby you can subscribe to newsfeeds, blogfeeds, and add useful tools to your homepage. This is great way to increase your personal productivity, efficiency, and have all your favorite tools all on one page. You can pull up this web-based homepage from any computer.
3. Everything you every wanted to know about RSS resources: The Ultimate RSS Toolbox - 120+ RSS Resources.
4. Seven Tools for creating a RSS Feed from any Website -- a bit more advanced, but has useful links.