Thing #14: Week 6:Technorati and Tags

I subscribed to Technorati, and I started looking at the many different sites that it has. I was also able to add some Del.icio.us bookmarks to many interesting articles that I particularly enjoyed reading about. When I searched for "School Library Learning 2.0" in blog posts, I was able to sort by the latest posts on this topic. When I chose tags, my results got even more refined and data-specific. When I then searched the blog directory, I got broad, general categories that were not specific. So different search modes will definitely get you different results. Because this past week's latest entertainment news focused on singer Rihanna's alleged assault by her boyfriend, I was able to see the police shot after the assault. What amazes me about Technorati is its lightning speed ability to bring information speedily to the forefront. Tagging, then, is a very valuable tool that enables users to search for terms using native vs. controlled vocabulary. This creates such a barrier-free mode to communication because you do not have to have a specialized skill set to participate in community sharing today. Because tagging mirrors our content rich, publisher-ready information world, I truly do not see disadvantages that would derail this philosophy of bringing the information now to today's participating world.