The itch to write

We recently launched post tagging. I've been keeping an eye on how people are using tags and tag clouds, and I think I can help you get the most out of the new feature. How should you tag your posts?

1. Tag with multiple tags. Assume you'll be looking for a post and you will not remember which tags it has. If you tag with most characteristics of the post, it'll be easier to find in the future. Example: Imagine you had a holiday with your friends in Tignes. Go crazy on the tags: tignes, ski, snowboard, snow, ross, rachel, chandler, phoebe, holiday.
2. Use short tag names. You don't need to include several concepts on one tag. Spread them out. Instead of "ski holiday on tignes", use "ski, holiday, tignes". In the near future we'll allow you to combine tags when searching for posts.
3. Use tags common to other blog authors on the internet. If you are responding to someone's post or writing about something that's spreading through the net, tag with the same tags. Look at the original post for the tags, or follow what's being talked about in technorati.
4. Every so often -- say, every few months -- take a look at your tags page (only when you are logged in). Merge tags that are similar, by renaming the duplicate tag to the new name. Imagine you have "holiday" and "holidays". Rename "holiday" to "holidays".

If you want to do a post with a video from YouTube like this excellent one,

just follow the instructions in our Knowledgebase.

We just launched Sticky Posts! What are those? No, not those yellow reminders you have all over your screen and desk :-)

A sticky post is one that will always appear on the top of the blog main page regardless of the date. Many people use them for a more verbose description of the blog, welcome messages or comment posting rules.

To do a sticky post just check the box in the new post page, like this:

Please note that you can only have one sticky post per blog. Checking a second post as sticky removes the stickyness from the old one.

As you probably noticed we have replaced the category list with the brand new Tag Cloud on blog sidebars. We just launched the ability to classify your posts into multiple tags or labels. This replaced the old category-based classification mechanism. In the sake of simplicity, we moved existing categories into tags, and removed the interface for category classification.

Tags work like keywords. You can classify a post with as many tags as you like and you can edit them later. We tag posts in a search engine friendly fashion, so that search engines like technorati pickup your posts and assign them to correct tags.

Try it out: Post about a movie, and fill out the tag input with: "movie; drama; scarlet; de palma". Naturally, if you wish to use those exact tags, you'll need to go out to your local theater and watch The Black Dahlia if you wish to write something interesting.

This system is great your personal information, allowing you to later retrieve your posts by combining tags. It also allows you to posts by other authors that use the same tags. It's also great for finding out about people with your tastes, also writing on blog.com -- for example other posts about The Black Dahlia). We'll be working on some new browsing pages that will allow this feature.

If you didn't enjoy this new tag cloud you can switch to the old tag listing system in the Sidebar section in the editor, just click edit in the tag cloud line and choose list. You also can order these blocks alphabetically or by number of posts.

One last note: in the tag cloud, the bigger the tag name the greater is the number of posts under the tag.

New Friends feature!

You can now write a post for friends only. Just tick the box like the examle.

Your post will appear like this to the readers that are not your friends.

Please note that you need to have a friends network.