2005-01-24

Introducing the "Balkania" tag

The Technorati service has introduced a neat little feature that might make it possible to follow new posts on a subject on any weblog. The feature is described on the Technorati tags page. This looks like a pretty decent way, with a small bit of human memory and the finger effort involved in cutting and pasting, to see what people are saying on a particular day.

I have opened the "Balkania" tag as a way of marking and getting listed posts related to, broadly speaking, the Balkans. There is probably no need for a debate over what Balkans are, let the definition develop through usage of the tag. For now, if you go to the "Balkania" page, you will only find listings for this site. But there are are also astonishingly simple instructions for getting your own posts listed under this category if you want.

Have a look and see whether it interests you.

5 comments:

Bora Zivkovic said...

I'll try. I am still a bit confused about the Techorati tags, but I'll wait and see....

zdenka pregelj said...

Started blog about Balkans myself, but still do not uderstand this "tag" business!

Eric Gordy said...

Seesaw, dobrodosla bila u blogosferu!
The idea with the tags seems to be that you put a line of code into your post indicating what it is about, and the Technorati service will pick up the post and put it on an ongoing list of posts on that topic. The code for "Balkania" is provided in the page for the "Balkania" tag which is linked in the message. If enough people do this, then it ought to be possible to check in periodically and see what all of them have had to say on a topic.

Eric Gordy said...

I realize that some people may want quick instructions on how to use the tag. If you go to the "Balkania" page at Technorati which is linked in the post, they give some, but basically it is very easy. Here is all you need to do:

1. When you write a post on a topic that seems to be "Balkanic," add the following link somewhere in the post, probably at the end or beginning, or maybe just after the title, however you like--

[a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Balkania" rel="tag"]Balkania[/a]

Substituting the pointy brackets < and > for the squarish brackets [ and ].

2. Check the "Balkania" page, on which you will see your post and all of the other recent ones on other blogs that have the "Balkania" tag.

That is really all! There are just two of us who seem to be using for now, but if more peole join in, it can be a good resource.

Bora Zivkovic said...

OK, I placed the balkania tag on a couple of my recent posts. Techorati is far from instant, though, so I hope to see the tags listed tomorrow.