All About Tags « The MyBlogLog Blog

24May/07

All About Tags

By now you've seen our newest feature, tagging, on MyBlogLog. We have had FAR too much fun this week tagging each other, so I hope you enjoy it at least half as much as we have.

Some people have suggested that tags, while well-known to the tech savvy, are still unfamiliar to many web users. We decided a crash-course in tagging was in order.

What is a tag?
Tags are used to classify and identify an item. The difference in a typical directory classification though, is that tags are user-created, meaning YOU decide who gets grouped in whichever way suits you. You might 'tag' MyBlogLog as cool, social, blogs and friends. Or, you might tag it something less flattering. Sure, it would sadden us, but the tags you use to classify items are entirely up to you. As more people tag an item with the same word, the tag will grow larger and bolder. When you see a giant tag, you can be sure that the word is in some way relevant to the item it is being used to describe.

You can see here that more people tagged me MyBlogLog than any other tag. It's first in my list and it's the largest and boldest word. Rock Star is second, and that's really a shame, because it really describes me well.

Tagging usage on MyBlogLog:

How can I tell who tagged me? Hover over the tag and to the right you'll see a listing of the people who've tagged you. Below I've hovered over the tag, Mom, and you can see that Todd, John and Ian are the people who've tagged me with that term.

How do I opt-out of tagging? Your community can not opt-out of tagging. However, you do not have to participate in tagging on your personal profile. Or, you can decide that only you or only you and your friends can tag you. All of these settings can be found in the Edit Profile section.

How do I delete a tag that someone has left on my page? You can delete tags in the same way that you can block a member and their messages from being shown on your page. Hover over the tag and click the Red x. Even if someone else tags you the same thing again, it will never show up on your page again.

What are some really cool ways we can use tagging to help the overall MyBlogLog community? I'm glad you asked! Two things we wanted to make more 'user-moderated' can be well served with user tagging.

1. Spam - If you think someone is spamming you, tag it out loud! Internally, we like to call a user who games the system a SchMOe (Social Media Optimizer). Tag anyone who spams you with the term schmoe.
While they have the ability to delete the tag and never see it again, WE can see it internally. As their user account racks up the schoe tag, we'll investigate their conversations and take appropriate action.

2. Hot Members - Let's allow the users of MyBlogLog to pick Hot Members! Every week I'll dig through the users who are frequently tagged a Hot Member and let you all know about one of them. User chosen Hot Members sounds so much cooler to me anyway.

Your tags will be helpful in these regards, and in making the blogs listed on MyBlogLog easier to find as well. We are still working on how we will use these tags to find relevant blogs (which is why you can't opt-out of community tagging), but in the interim, you can find who else shares your tag (say, Mom) by clicking the tag on your own page.

Here's the result when I clicked MyBlogLog on my own profile.

I could have also visited http://mybloglog.com/buzz/tags/mybloglog

If I wanted to find blogs that talk about real estate, I could have gone to http://mybloglog.com/buzz/tags/realestate to see other communities or people tagged Real Estate. Whatever tag you are interested in seeing can be found in this way. Just go to http://mybloglog.com/buzz/tags/ and discover new profiles and communities based on what's important to you. Be sure to tag your own blogs with relevant keywords as well so that potential readers will be able to find you more easily.

Soon we'll make this easier, but we are still trying to decide how to display this data. We really wanted to get tagging out to you today, so you could go ahead and start classifying yourself and your favorite blogs and bloggers.

Any suggestions, as always, are welcome and appreciated! Thanks again for being a part of our family.