Saturday, September 19, 2009

Tag Surfer - Blogger vs. WordPress.com

I'm more familiar with WordPress.com, therefore it will be better for me to discuss the WordPress.com features that I find useful first. Eventually I might find that Blogger has similar tools that I am not aware of. I'll start things off with my Tool of the Day - Tag Surfer.




In WordPress.com you can create tags which appear at the end of your post. You create them yourself, so you can spell them however you like, but if you make a typo it's on you. Adding and deleting them is quite simplistic. The very first post you add tags to WordPress.com will automatically put those tags on your tag surfer list but you can change them as you wish.

From the My Account dashboard click on tag surfer and you will see a list of posts from other WordPress.com bloggers using the same tags. This is great, because it gives you the opportunity to read what others are thinking about the same topic that you have interest in and it's a great way to connect. The biggest advantage for me is that you can also add something to your tag list that you are thinking about blogging about or that your friend is blogging about or - just anything else your heart desires.

In the last 2 days I found 2 very resourceful blogs this way.
http://theoldsilly.com/
http://bloodywellwrite.com/
I would not have found these without the tag surfer tool, well at least not as quickly and easily. You can set the parameters of the tag list, such as how many posts will be returned and how many days in the past you would like to search. I like this flexibility because I had way too many posts appear when I tagged Jupiter (turns out there are tons of Jupiter lovers out there), and John Coltrane. So I just deleted them from my tag surfer list (which did not remove the tag from my posts) and added something new to the list like Bing.

If Blogger has a similar tool, I can't wait to see the results. But at this rate, I'll never find it because I am going back over to my WordPress.com blog. Bye for now.

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12 comments:

Kissie said...

B- This might not be the right place to comment on your profile pic....but it is GORGEOUS! It reminds me of the pictures you take.

Regarding this post, Blogger has some catching up to do!

Kissie said...

Also, why is the word verification necessary and why do you have to preview the comments before posting? Trust issues?

Ileane Smith said...

Hey Ohhh....K! How are you? Didn't realize you were out of town. Thought you were ignoring this blog. I'm not sure about "word verification" or the "preview comments" questions. Maybe that is something I need to change in my profile. I'll take a look. Smooches.

Ileane Smith said...

Thanks for the kudos on the picture. And believe it or not I did take it. I try to take a bunch every time I come back from the salon (if I come straight home). This one is about 1 year old. I use a hand-held tripod and click away.

Ileane Smith said...

Ohhh...K, changed my settings for comments and word verification. Ohhh....K????

Kissie said...

The WordPress site is better - (Blogger is even making me write the comments again!)Have you come up with any comparisons since?

Ileane Smith said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Alison Moore Smith said...

WordPress rules, Ileane!

Anonymous said...

Didn't know about Tag Surfer. You are always so full of helpful information! I can't wait to try this out! Thanks!!

vegan old salt said...

Just curious why no link to Tag Surfer in your post?

Ileane Smith said...

Hi Boomerblogger,

WordPress.com users can access Tag Surfer from their personal dashboard. Please take a look at a short video I created that shows how you can access Tag Surfer from your WordPress.com dashboard http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHrrdzuv8Jc

Thanks for your interest.

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