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Congratulations on the Tag Page at Technorati! Is it Our Turn Now?

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The Exciting New Tag Pages Go Live Today!

When you go to Technorati this morning — oh you’re one who’s stopped going? — well go on over. They have exciting news! David Sifry has announced the new and updated Tag Pages in honor of the second anniversary of Technorati tags. At the Technorati weblog, where he makes the announcement, David explains the beauty of both the tag pages and the value of tags.

Technorati Tag Pages

And, with the launch of our new Tag Pages, we’ve improved the way that you can check out the Live Web, too. A Technorati Tag Page shows you everything in the known universe (blogs, videos, photos, podcasts, music, people) tagged with your topic or interests, all in one place. [ . . . ]

The beauty of tags is that they’re metadata: data about data. What does that mean? Tags actually describe their subject, as opposed to, say, keywords, which just occur within them.

Is It Our Turn Now?

I’m delighted with your new Tag Pages, Dave. Seems every time I turn around there’s another new feature or an improved whistle to one. I bet it feels grand to be growing and winning technology awards. I just wonder how many customers asked for this one, because the Technorati users that I know have more basic things at the top of their wishlist.

Every morning and throughout the day, I play a game I call Technorati Roulette. I get links on posts, and I check in. There’s no predictability to whether my link count will go up, go down, or even change. I might have the fun of seeing my archive chronology suddenly rearrange time in some alien fashion.

Every time Technorati does a reset, upgrade, or anything new, I lose 20 or more links, just like that! I’ve learned to expect it every weekend. It’s a fact of Technorati life.

You might say that’s because Technorati only tracks 6 months of links. That argument doesn’t work. That might work if my archives went back 6 months but they only go back 60 days!! And there was no weekend in the history of this blog that I took on as many links as I’ve been losing in one fell swoop. So that math doesn’t work.

Things at Technorati I have been broken since five months before I wrote Dear Niall Kennedy and David Sifry at Technorati. That would be about 16 months now.

Here are my problems today:
Janice does her best to address what’s going on. The engineers look. The issues remain. There are plenty of emails with screenshots about the problems. Sorry to do this out loud, but behind the scenes hasn’t worked. Maybe this way some folks reading will feel they are not alone.

  • This is my link archive page — Question: What happened to the links between 20 hours and 4 days ago? Answer: They’re scattered among my other links throughout my link archive chronology. (Click to enlarge.)

    Technorati 108 Archive page 2

  • I still have rogue links that repeat and repeat through my archives. I’ve discussed this one and sent screenshots too often to detail it here. Page through my link archive chronology, and you will see four or five of the same links crop up over and over.
  • Random Example: Page 61 of my link archives lists my links from 29 days ago — except for the two entries that are from 24 days ago. Many/most archive pages have one or two entries out of chronology like that.
  • Somewhere around link archive page 115, EVERY ARCHIVE PAGE REPEATS. I HAVE NO LINKS OLDER THAN 60 DAYS. I HAVE BEEN WRITING ABOUT THIS FOR MONTHS.

That’s just me though. What about the folks I know who haven’t been indexed for over 100 days? What about the folks who can’t get indexed at all? What about the folks who can’t claim their blogs? How important is an improved Tag Page to them?

David, I’m sorry to rain on your parade. But c’mon. Where are you looking? It’s our content that you’re indexing. We’re stakeholders in what you do.

Sooner or later, someone like Blog Pulse is going to provide a service that works and folks will go there. We’ll go there because it’s more reliable than Technorati roulette and because it’s more fun than writing this kind of post to a guy that I really like.

When is it our turn? When is our wishlist important enough?

— ME “Liz” Strauss

UPDATE: WHEN I PUBLISHED THIS POST I DROPPED 10 MORE LINKS. I CAN’T QUIT LAUGHING ABOUT THE TIMING OF THAT.

UPDATE: THANKS DAVID, JANICE, AND THE ENGINEERING TEAM FOR RESTORING MY LINK COUNT. I APPRECIATE IT. :p

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301 Links in a Story — Chapter 10 The Lost 18 Hours, The Prep, and the Final Round

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Finding Ideas Outside of the Box logo 2

[For those of you just tuning in, this is based on the 301 Lists that Darren Rowse’s List Group Writing Project brought together. You’ll find Chapter 1 here –> A List Becomes 301 Links in Story — Chapter 1 ]

When We Left the . . . Studio

You might remember that at last look, our famed uncontrollable force and unpredictable influence, Lizzie and Amanda Congdon, leaving the studio of the International Blogging List Challenge! for parts unknown. The studio was in chaos after the Blogging 7th Heaven CanCan Dancers had roused the blogging audience into such a tizzy — blogging and applauding at the same time. (Which we have already established isn’t easy, if not completely impossible.)

Robert Scoble videoblogged the entire escapade.

The scoreboard read Arianna 600 Jeremy, Jeremy 200 Dave 200.

Rumor has it that the bloggers and the Blogging 7th Heaven People enjoyed a night of debauchery at 10 Rue Dante — an irony that I’d love to write about, but for once not a single blogger blogged the following 18 hours. They claimed a complete system failure — power, DS, and wireless — all out. Some spoke of eerie MySql errors written on the bathroom walls.

That lost 18 hours has gone down in blogging history as Blog Silence, Dead Feeds, and Dante’s New Level. Even Scoble’s video crew would only say, “We’re glad that MaryAm took you back to the hotel.”

Meanwhile Back at the Hotel . . .

The sun rose on a new day and gave hope to our contestants, the nationally syndicated columnist, author of ten books, international speaker and blogger, Arianna Huffington; the self-described serial entreprenuer, CEO and founder of Blog index Technorati, nationally known programmer, blogger, and blog sociologist, and friend of Janice Myint, David L. Sifry; and author, co-founder and president of b5 media, international blogger, traveler, speaker, and sometimes spy Jeremy, Jeremy Wright.

All three contestants were eating a quiet breakfast in the hotel dining room as they prepared for the show. Each was hoping not to embarrass his or her family, nation, planet, or galaxy — thereby causing an international incident of some sort. One was reading Ten Ways to Build Moats to Hold Back the Competition. Another was studying 5 Ways MyMoneyBlog Can Make You $100. The third trying to find the horoscope in the National Enquirer.

Our uncontrollable force and unpredictable influence were upstairs having their usual room service — a pizza with fresh tomato, a dozen chocolate-covered strawberries, and two bottles of Perrier-Jouet. This time they sat on the balcony discussing what to wear.

“I’ve done the black and white,” said Lizzie. “I think I might live dangerously and do deep, deep purple with a hint of pale pink.”

“That’s it,” said Amanda, laughing. “Blow that Alice-in-Wonderland image! Go for Purple Haze Jimi Hendrix. I’m wearing popurls Pearls from head to toe.”

Finally the Show Was Back On

That one day seemed to take forever. Each group had reasons why it took so long, but finally the lights, the cameras, the music, the announcements had happened and again the International Blogging List Challenge! was on.

[Read more…]

301 Links in a Story — Chapter 9 The Lists of 10 and the CanCan

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Finding Ideas Outside of the Box logo 2

[For those of you just tuning in, this is based on the 301 Lists that Darren Rowse’s List Group Writing Project brought together. You’ll find Chapter 1 here –> A List Becomes 301 Links in Story — Chapter 1 ]

The Show Goes On

Backstage, Lizzie, who wore white satin and sequins, and Amanda Congdon, in beautiful blue, discussed the traits that Jeremy. Jeremy Wright had in common with James Bond and Jack Bauer.

“J”

“Too bad his last name isn’t Bright.”

That’s as far as they got when it was time for them to walk out together.

“Welcome back, everyone,” Amanda called to the audience. Then, walking past each contestant, she clicked each contestant’s button to say hello as she went by. They all smiled back.

“Hi Arianna, Dave, and Jeremy, Jeremy! Shall we start?” Lizzie said, grateful that our two VIDSTARS got to come out after the music, lights, introductions, and rules had all been taken care of.

“Tonight the Blog Board starts with the category Lists of 10. We’ll move from contestant to contestant under a time limit. Each person will be asked to blog one item on a list of 10. Each answer that is actually on the list will be worth 100 points. Scores when we left last night were Arianna — 500, Jeremy — 100, and Dave — 0.”

“Dave, we’ll begin with you.”

“I was up all night, studying every blog at Technorati.”

Top 10 Ways to Get a Technorati Top 100 Blogger to Link to Your Blog or Website

[Read more…]

301 Links in a Story — Chapter 8 Lizzie, Amanda, Arianna, David, and Jeremy

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Finding Ideas Outside of the Box logo 2

[For those of you just tuning in, this is based on the 301 Lists that Darren Rowse’s List Group Writing Project brought together. You’ll find Chapter 1 here –> A List Becomes 301 Links in Story — Chapter 1 ]

At the Studio

Lizzie followed. Jeremy. Jeremy Wright across Rue Dante into the creepy brownstone-like building up the stairs to the second floor. The door at the top of the stairs was on a landing with a desk.

“I don’t have keys,” said Jeremy, Jeremy Wright. “I’ll find Aaron Brazell to let us in.”

“I’ll hang here,” Lizzie said, settiing in at the desk.

The desk had a book for visitor sign ins, alongside it were several information pamphlets. They were lined up in a little stand as if this were a bed and breakfast. The header on the stand said, “Classic Pre-Show Reading.”

“Get your post listed on 25 sites in 10 Minutes” by Fence, Emily and Evening Post.

“They should know,” Lizzie thought, getting interested.

7 1/2 pieces of Blogging Software I have used by a kid with many siblings who’s had to share everything.

Essential Books for Bloggers How books can be used to raise your monitor to eye level and to do other cool stuff.

Should I Add Your blog? Alan Greenspan tries creative economics during retirement.

How I Set Up WordPress Ben Trott outlines the plan he never made to foil a competitor.

The Secret to Blogging for Baby Poop One Gentleman Blogger’s Way of Tracking Achievement Without Using Money as a Benchmark.

How to Keep Spam out of your Blog The latest kid craze since putting sandwiches in the VCR went out with DVD players.

“I wondered what kids were doing now,” Lizzie laughed.

Aaron came through the door with Jeremy, Jeremy Wright.

“Hey, Lizzie,” Aaron said. “Could you hand me that Sailing Magazine I left on the desk?

Our new TV host passed it to our sailor friend and followed our Jack Bauer/James Bond type into the studio. Then she gasped with some emotion she couldn’t quite name.

The seats were set up as if David Letterman would walk out any minute, but the stage was different, so different. It looked as if it were a gigantic . . . [Read more…]

Technorati Has a Birthday and We Get the Present!

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Customer-Centered Technorati!

In honor of their third anniversary as a company, Technorati has rolled out a major upgrade. The billboard that Technorati has changed their view to customer-centered is that when you sign in, you’ll find the home page is about you, your blogs, and what you might find interesting — not about Technorati.

I’m already liking these changes.

  • The Home Page brings what I need together. Everything I use daily is there. I love that the ping is right on top. I can click directly to my indexed posts.
  • The link counts are a lot more accurate. Thank you.
  • Favorites makes sense and is easier. I’m MUCH more likely to use Favorites Now.
  • Technorati Browser Buttons are one reason I’m more likely to use Favorites now.
  • The Search function is faster and has more filters. I very much like that I can filter by language.
  • The Search results have extended excerpts. (Show details.) I can take a closer look without having to click through.
  • The support text is written clearly. That’s a BIG deal to me. Thanks Technorati for getting a great writer to write these bits and pieces. No confusion or ambiguity whatsoever in anything I’ve read so far.
  • I also love the quieter new layout.

Check out this tool for business blogging, blog promotion, and branding. You can read about it and see a video of the features at Sifry’s Alerts by clicking on this title.

Technorati turns 3

Happy Birthday, Technorati! Thank you, David and Technorati, for the present!

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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SOB Business Cafe 07-14-2006

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SB Cafe

Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking–articles on the business of blogging written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the title shots to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

Another Blogger offers a fresh look at 9 things we should all understand about who we are and who we write for.

9 Things Every Blogger Should Understand

Case Notes from the Artsy Asylum delves into and analyzes the latest press about David Sifry’s Interview and changes at Technorati.

Workout4Bloggers reminds us to take care of our own parts that can breakdown while we work.

The New Flatness goes deep in considering the huge importance of web presence and it’s impact on our future.

Related ala carte selections include

Shards of Consciousness reminds us that people and stars are made of the same stuff.

Whos the Star of Your Story

Cuileann McKenzie offers a creative solution for keeping track of fleeting ideas.

Do I Need a Tin Foil Hat

Sit back. Enjoy your read. Nachos and drinks will be right over. Stay as long as you like.
No tips required. Comments appreciated.

Have a great weekend!

–ME “Liz” Strauss