Technorati tags (updated)
Time to try out the Technorati tags I think.
Update 30 Jan 05: Like Tim Bray, I think there is something potentially really interesting about the tags concept (see David Sifry's overview). But I'm a bit confused. I get the concept, but it seems clumsy. Also, it doesn't seem to work at the moment. To be fair, Sifry does explain in his disclaimer from his post on 17th Jan:
"This is still beta software. It has bugs. There are kinks to be worked out, and missing features, too. For example, we still miss some tags here and there, especially for certain weblogs, due to some post detection issues. We're working on that. In addition, we will be providing RSS feeds so you can subscribe to your favorite tags. We're also working on ways that anyone can participate and be included in the system, keep your eyes on this space in the near future."
I've search around and found a few references.
- Technorati Tag API is Broken, referring to the spec, not system perfomance (Via Scoble Links)
- Problems on Technorati
Technorati's Kevin Marks (I think he works a Technorati) tries to clarify a couple of matters in his post 'Tagging is for posts'
"Over the past few days I've seen a lot of reaction to Technorati's new tags feature. I hope to deal with the wider social networking, spam and ontological issues at a future date, but I'd like to have another go at clarifying the details of rel="tag" again, as if Tim Bray, Roland Tanglao and Kevin Burton are all puzzled by it, we're obviously not conveying the idea clearly enough."
Kevin goes on to provide some detail on the following:
- It is not for tagging a URL
- Tags do not require Technorati-proprietary URLs
- Tags are not invisible metadata
I'll keep digging.