Category: Other

As you might have already noticed, I’ve recently looked into tags. Tags, in blogging terms, are user-defined annotations of blog posts. If I write a long-winded post about Jean Lapierre for example, I might use the following tags to annotate my post: lapierre, bloc, liberal, transport. These annotations make it easier for users to find relevant information and allow web services to deliver better results. As I’ve mentioned on Blogging Tories, Flickr and Technorati are two services which use author-defined tags to annotate information. Odeo is a newly launched service that allows for the annotation of podcasts using tags.

Another type of tag is used on the Internet and that is the end-user-defined tag. del.icio.us is such a service and allows any website end-user (not just the author as with technorati and flickr tags) to annotate a website with relevant tags. You, the end-user can annotate this very post yourself if you like by clicking on the + del.icio.us link below. Most users of del.icio.us use the bookmarklet which allows one’s browser to tag the website that the user is viewing at that time.

I have tagged this post with relevant technorati tags (tags, socialbookmarking, del.icio.us) to increase this post’s exposure and to help consumers of blogs find relevant information.

Technorati and del.icio.us are two websites that I highly recommend. I use del.icio.us to store my bookmarks online (sorted by my own annotations) so that I can find favourite websites quickly and from any computer connected to the Internet. “Social bookmarking” is a key feature of del.icio.us as your tagged bookmarks are accessible to others through their common tags and through a tag-based search on the del.icio.us website (so, it would be recommended to use an anonymous username, and not to bookmark your bank account webpage for example).

Tagging, in my opinion, is a blogging feature that has grown past its infancy and has been accepted into the mainstream. Become a tagger today!

I’ve added a new feature to the Blogging Tories website: Tory Tags.

What is this all about? Tagging initiatives such as Flickr and Technorati are currently at the leading edge of blogging technology. Blogging Tories has integrated a tag-like system that displays a jumble of keywords below. This display of keywords is a visual representation of keyword prevalence on Blogging Tories member blogs. Bigger links represent more posts that contain that particular key word or phrase. This is a good view of what the Blogging Tories have discussed and what they are discussing right now.

(Technically, the page doesn’t display “tags” per se, but rather keywords. I’ve used the term “tags” because the output of the data is “tag-like”)

On Tory Tags, “Canada”, “liberals”, “blogging” and “London” are current hot topics, while Stephen Harper, Paul Martin, Gurmant Grewal, Monte Solberg, and Chuck Cadman are the most highly discussed Canadian politicians. On a side note though, I’m sad to see that “Mercer” is getting as much attention as “Gomery” from the Blogging Tories.

If any Conservative/Liberal/NDP politician, member of the media, or voter wants to get a snapshot of the current burning topics in the Canadian conservative blogosphere (one reflection of the grassroots), they can consult Tory Tags on Blogging Tories.

Kate McMillan of SDA fame has the Grewal cheques and a letter from MP Grewal’s EDA president to CBC’s Terry Milewski debunking any Conservative impropriety surrounding the cheques.

“We would like to conclude with two important thoughts though. The first is that the common denominator in all of the above is not so much the matter of missing receipts, but rather the fact that loyalty to Ujjal Dosanjh figured large, and often, in our inquiries. This is perhaps not surprising at all, given it is the Liberal Party’s sworn intention to do everything it can to deflect attention away from Mr. Ujjal Dosanjh by attempting to shoot the messenger (that would be our Member of parliament) at every opportunity. Even the most flimsy of claims against Mr. Grewal are trotted out in the achievement of the goal of shielding Mr. Dosanjh from additional, or centre-stage scrutiny. We have heard for some time now that there would be a challenge to Mr. Grewal in the form of cheques. Given what we have seen with the above six items, we feel that the strategy of the Liberals will continue, as will our ability to defend our MP.” — Jim Holt, President Newton North Delta EDA, Conservative Party of Canada

Go read the whole thing!