One of the things that excites me the most about blogging is all that there is to learn, from html coding to how to be a better writer. That's why when I heard about the Back to School Back to Blogging challenge hosted by GiGi at Kludgy Mom, I jumped on the opportunity!
This weeks task was to take a look at the zillions of widgets and plug ins available to the various blogging platforms and find one that is somewhat unknown but really helpful. This task was harder then I thought it would be because there are so many available. I finally found one that I think would be a great fit for me and would actually help enhance my posts.
Zemanta is a plug in that analyzes your post while your typing. When you're working in Blogger (it is also available for Wordpress) a box shows up on the right hand side of the post your working on. Once your done with your post, or as your typing, you can click the update button and pictures, articles and links relevant to your post will come up so you can choose what would like to include in your post.
I used this post to test this new plug in and have to admit that I was a little let down. I thought it would bring up Kludgy Mom's website but it didn't. However, it did give me a lot of articles related to Zemanta which was helpful. It also provided links to some of the keywords in my post (blogging, html, etc) but most of those links were for Wikipedia.
The plug in is supposed to be able to review your old posts and give you recommendations of posts that are similar to the one your writing so you can link back. However, when I went to register my blog address it didn't complete automatically. The same thing happened when I registered my Twitter account.
I had really high hopes for this plug in and so far it has not met my expectations but I'm going to use it for a little longer to see how it is once my blog address and twitter update. I'll test it on my next few posts and then I'll provide an update as to whether I think this plug in is helpful. For now, if your on Blogger and want to know more about this plug in, click here.
Interesting. I have never heard of this one before. It sounds like a GREAT concept - finding old posts to link to within a new post is a fantastic idea. Is it a new plugin? Maybe they need more time to work on it. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteI use this plug-in. At first I had issues with getting it to "read" my own blog posts. I had to reenter my info more than once, but now it brings up some of my older posts. I agree it could use some tweaking.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much! I was fooling around with these the other day, so I really appreciate the info for those of us that are new to the blogging world. I'm following you, wanna follow me?
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That sounds great! I will look forward to hearing how it works out! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteVisiting from the comment you left on my blog!
ReplyDeleteI've been using Zemanta for a while now and have mostly used it for the pics! I really need to start using some of the other features that it offers.... or at least try to!
Just an FYI... I installed the Firefox 4 beta and Zemanta (along with a lot of other things) didn't work anymore.
This looks like very interesting. I will have to check it out!
ReplyDeleteinteresting. let us know how it works out!! sounds like it could be good!
ReplyDeletewww.workwifemomlife.com