confessions of a southside catatonic chataholic

Another long post - forewarned is forearmed so naff off if yer not a fan of the long winded, and god knows I'm definitely that!

Err Technorati! My earlier comment on this blog was that I found Technorati to be 'ick' because I like my news etc. disguised as trash and it looked too much like the NZ Herald for my liking. Never was a fan of the Herald - serves as a reminder that the mainstream view will always filter Maori news to their liking - which always seems to be negative. Pfft!

Prejudice aside, Technorati is actually pretty gosh darn clever, and I had to figure that out by playing in it first, sheesh. The first Discovery Exercise is to perform a keyword search for "Learning 2.0" in Blog posts, tags AND in the Blog Directory. So . . .

* Learning 2.0 without speech marks brought up some 9,200 results in blog posts, although the two words are together AND separate, "learning 2.0" with speech marks brought up some 459 results in blog posts.
* Blogs themselves gave me 948 blogs about learning 2.0 (no speech marks) and 336 results about "learning 2.0" with speech marks.
* The Blog directory has a Web 2.0 folder under the 'Technology' heading. If we're not meant to use this (technically it reads 'Web 2.0' not 'Learning 2.0' - is that nitpicking? 'cause I would assume this is the same. Have seen references to web 2.0 as learning 2.0 - and vice versa - on various sites, although you know what they say about people who assume . . .) Assuming we can use Web 2.0 err it doesn't tell me how many results there. Should it? I have no clue. To answer the exercise query: Are the results different? Heck, yeah!

Exercise number 2: Explore popular blogs, searches and tags - is anything interesting or surprising in your results? Umm yeah - under 'Top Searches' prozac is listed at number 3 - I found that kinda interesting - prob 'cause I don't know anyone that uses it. The related tags for that search are about what I expected (depression, antidepressants etc.). Tried the 'Top 100 Blogs' and went for number 5 'Engadget' simply because the title is kinda quirky and I have no idea what/who Engadget is/are. Having looked at their site I'm still no clearer LOL It has 2,545 fans - umm still no idea. They've got no info entered and no tags either. Maybe I should've used Boing Boing instead. They're at number 1 with 3,786 fans, tags and info: weblog of cultural curiosities and interesting technologies. More my kinda thing!

Decided to join Technorati, which is probably just as well as one of the Optional Excercises for this tutorial is to claim your own blog. Seemed an easy enough process to sign up (thank gosh) but I intensely dislike all of the IE screens argh. Claiming the blog seemed to be even more simple (once I realised I was looking in the wrong place and YES I'm rolling my eyes again). A case of signing up, logging in and then clicking on 'Manage my blogs' to the faaaar right of the Technorati homepage. Then enter the URL for your blog, click 'Claim', read through the obligatory - hmm let me take that all back! Having since almost typed that I find that '. . . there is a problem claiming your blog. Please try again in a few minutes . . .' Ok, apparently it helps if I type my dratted URL correctly. Who knew?! So where was I? Uh-huh! You have the obligatory 'this is your blog blah blah blah' comment to read through and then claim and VOILA - all done. And to prove it . . .

Clicking this link will take you to my Technorati Profile! Easy peasy lemon squeezy :0) I think.

I've yet to tag posts with Technorati (time constraints - in the Learn.Net next will have a bash then) so am off to tea and will no doubt be able to work on some afterward. . .

A coffee and a banana later (and let's not mention scrabbling around on the damn floor around Learn.Net station 2 to set up the damn scanner for a damn customer - how elegant!) and I'm back to do the last 2 optional exercises: tag posts and create a watchlist.

Uh-huh! Creating a watchlist was very simple, chucked in 4 things just for the sake of it: 2 specific URLs - Waltzing Matilda's blog, Infamous Rambler's blog, and 2 general info - anything on iPod and blackberry.

Took one look at the tags for Technorati and about keeled over. Holy birthday cake, Batman! You want us to WHAT?!? Hmm, have to ponder this to get my head round it . . .And yes, that is Batman on the left *points left* with tights :) Hei kona, e hoa ma ('cause it's Maori Language Week, ya know).