Before you watch the following anthropological video about the intersection between the written word and digital media, may I ask you to stop what you’re doing and click here to visit my blog archive?
My archive is like a library.
Scratch that. My archive is a library.
But if you don’t visit a public library, why would you visit a blog library? Wouldn’t you rather visit a search engine, or at the least type something in the search box in the above right of any blog page here? Even if you do visit libraries, why would you visit blog archives?
What a conundrum!
Maybe I should stop tagging and categorizing blog posts. After all, search engines, the search box, and the archive page will continue to display posts.
What do you suggest?
Hrm.
In the meantime, check out the video. You’ll enjoy it.
Should I rethink the way I provide information to you? Is providing it enough, or do you also need tags and categories? Would you ever click something like ideas below to see what else I’ve tagged under the word?
What about an archive? Worthwhile it is, and provides fodder, but do you click?
Let me know?
Photo credit: Envios
No related posts.
Learn more about Ari and AriWriter by visiting 
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Nice video
Keep the tags. If I come across a good blog post as a result of a Google search, I’ll check out the other posts under the same category. I’d recommend a tag cloud too, they’re a great way to find out the main themes of a blog and discover related categories.
Search engines are great, but only if you know what you’re looking for.
andymurd´s last blog post..Hone Your SEO Skills At The Huomah Dojo
Twitter Comment
@michaelbenidt @ariherzog seeking opinion on categzng blogs for srchability..RT: help me rethink information? Reply here: [link to post]
– Posted using Chat Catcher
What’s a tag? Haven’t used them – and not sure I understand them. But, you have to consider that I don’t know what those little deely-mabobs are down below as I write this. So consider the source.
I love the point, though – you do have a library of cool information here – and lots of people forget that it’s accessible in any number of different ways. For me, I wondered if you’d said anything about the Washington Post. So, I did a search of your blog for that phrase – “Washington Post.” I found a link to a book called “Consumed.” Now I’m gonna’ have to buy it. Which is why I don’t read much stuff on the Internet – it costs me way too much money. Especially blogs like this that have a treasure trove of good stuff and intriguing links.
I doubt that you will ever extend your tags or categories so far that they include “Washington Post.” And, if you did, the tags or index would be so long that I’d never be able to find it, anyway. Seems to me that “search” is the most powerful (and often ignored) way to get around, but I’m willing to listen to the taggers, because, after all, this is a library.
Oh, and thanks for the video link – my only suggestion is to give credit to Mike Wesch, the award winning professor who produced the video. Did I miss that? Or, was it tagged?
Hi Ari,
Your post is really interesting to me because, it is exactly the problem that pearltrees, the company I have founded, is solving.
Pearltrees enables web users to become web editors. What does that mean? It means that in pearltree you can select, organize and share your web contents.
The idea is simple, you build the map of an ideal navigation in your blog and you share it with your community.
I am sorry to be that commercial there but you really should try pearltrees.
http://www.pearltrees.com
stetoscope´s last blog post..Pearltrees’ blog is open
I like your “By Topic” categorization. I would be most likely to use that if I were just browsing to see what was there. If I were looking for something specific, I would probably use search. Tonight I needed to locate a specific podcast on the WBUR site, and because I knew the date, and rough time, I used their calendar of past shows and found it easily. Your “By Date” categorization probably is helpful to folks who remember when they’ve read something. I am not expert on tags, but to the extent that the tags influence where your content turns up in search engines that is probably valuable. If it is not too hard to maintain, having multiple ways to access and discover the content in your “library” does increase the number of people who use it/ find it.
Fruitful responses and intellectual fodder to consider all around. Thanks for your thoughts.
I think I look at tags more than archive categories, simply because I am looking for something very specific, like posts about Twitter, and I might not want to browse through an entire social networking category to find those. And I’m usually not much for the search box, because it would pull up any post with the word Twitter in it, and not necessarily a whole post about it.
~ Kristi
Kikolani | Blogging, Photography, Poetry´s last blog post..9 Ways to Use Social Networking for Blog Promotion
{ 1 trackback }