Yahoo! Flickr.icio.us - Save to del.icio.us from Flickr auto-gen's a thumbnail image for your del.icio.us entry.

UPDATE: Boy did I miss the boat on this one. Lifehacker posted this way back in May. sigh. I do like the fact that I can use this feature to mix up my del.icio.us page a bit with some flickr goodness though. Perhaps add some pieces of Flair, if you will. Think I'll tag some of my more interesting pics.heh.

Holy Yahoo! Flickr.icio.us batman. I was just over @ del.icio.us/popular and noticed something that I don't recall seeing exposed in their GUI - image thumbnail previews. Check out the screenshot of my silly self-pic taken earlier today on from my aging v3 RAZR. All you have to do is click the Save to del.icio.us link on whatever flickr pic you want to tag. this could change the game a bit.

Tags: del.icio.us, popular, thumbnail, image, social bookmarking, tagging

post on need for tagging standards makes del.icio.us most popular page

Just came across a recent post focusing on the need for standards (or not) for tagging systems. Furthers my case that we need to do something about these tagging systems or we're never going to be able to bring it to masses.

[UPDATE: Via trackback links on the above article, I read this post, and left this response to the author. ]

I think the KISS model is highly applicable in this case. Simple, effective tagging systems that all share the same baseline features might help, but may not address the inherent issues that crop up in socially-driven systems like del.icio.us and other sites.

My comments are really focused on the need for some level of commonality and consistency across tagging systems in the following areas:

• Ability to gracefully handle compound words, phrases, and multi-word tags. Space, no space, quotes, whatever. Pick one.
• Spell checking. FF2.0 brings this into the fold, but spelling errors in tags results in bloated and inaccurate tag clouds.
• Better equivalence detection capabilities - singular vs. plural, synonyms, typos, etc.
• Better tag management - for example, right now, on del.icio.us, I can only delete one tag at a time. Tag replacement helps me get rid of equivalents, but only one at a time.

What do you think?

Tags: tagging, tag, del.icio.us, commentary, standards, metadata, issue, feature, web2.0, socialsoftware, social bookmarking

Late night wrapup...uhhh..make that early morning wrapup

OK. It's 2:11am and I've been posting like a madman over at the recently launched Techcrunch Forums. I've finally found a venue to post a thread on the topic of tagging, socialsoftware, and the issues I have with today's tagging systems. Thanks to Michael Arrington and the team over at Techcrunch for rolling out another vehicle to build the community. Great stuff.

Oh and while I'm at it, please forgive the mess here on my blog. I'm so friggin #@!$@!#$ed off at the "New Blogger", that I MUST MUST MUST get my Ubuntu server setup, dialed in, loaded with Wordpress, and extract my feed to a dedicated server. I can't wait for the day to rid myself of my dependence on Blogger. With that, I'm calling it a night..err morning.

After all I have the Comcast guy who is supposed to show up tomorrow morning from 8-11am to swap out my existing Motorola HD-DVR with a new one that has a BIGGER hard drive -- and get this -- it's not costing me a dime!!! I'll post some more nuggets on how to get Comcast to kick down a brand spankin new HD-DVR with a bigger HDD.

Tags: techcrunch, forums, tagging, socialsoftware, blogger, rant, Comcast, cable, DVR, highdef

technorati tags vs. blogger labels

So I've been using this nifty little Greasemonkey script that inject a Technorati tag input form field to the blogger post GUI so I can embed technorati tags in my blog posts. As a recently upgraded blogger user (to the "new" system), I see that they've implemented a labels feature, which is strikingly similar to what I'm trying to accomplish by injecting technorati tags into my posts. Does anyone know if the Blogger labels are picked up by the blog engines like technorati, feed readers, and plain 'ole search engines? I guess I'll need to do some more research on Blogger labels.

My question for all you tech bloggers out there is:

technorati tags or blogger labels, or both?

This tagging stuff is getting to be a real pain in the a$$. sigh.

standards for tagging
standards for tagging
standards for tagging

[maybe if I repeat it enough, one will magically appear]

sigh. time to setup my ubuntu server with wordpress.

Tags: tags, labels, tagging, socialsoftware, socialbookmarking, debate, question