delicious blog

tagometer: badges badges badges badges BOOKMARKS BOOKMARKS

Being a blogger, one of my long-standing wishlist items for del.icio.us has been to find some way to get more of what’s going on here to show up out there. Instead of just simple links, I’ve wanted to get a bit of peek through the keyhole to see just what “save to del.icio.us” means and what others are doing with it on my pages. So, I’m happy to cross this item off my list and introduce a new version of the usual social bookmarking button that we’re dubbing the ‘Tagometer.’

what’s a tagometer?

These are some snapshots of what the Tagometer looks like. Like simpler static widgets, it includes a button inviting readers to bookmark your page on del.icio.us. The Tagometer opens things up from there - using a JSON data feed from del.icio.us, the Tagometer includes an up-to-date count of others who’ve already bookmarked the page, as well as a fresh list of the top tags applied.

Visitors can click on the count to see more detail on who bookmarked your page, when they did it, and how they tagged it. The list of tags shows visitors why your page is interesting, and clicking on a tag takes them to similar sites on del.icio.us.

how do i get one?

At the time of this launch, you’ve got an out-of-box choice of two CSS-based presentations shown in screenshot form above:

1. A rectangular badge, suitable for sidebars and inset information displays.
2. A single line, intended for use at the end of stories and blog entries.

Whichever one you choose, you can copy our example code for either of these and just paste it into your pages or templates. The Tagometer will automatically populate itself from the location and title it finds on the page where you’ve given it a home.

If you’ve got a bit more advanced DOM scripting, JSON, and CSS chops - try taking a look under the hood. The folks over at FeedBurner, for instance, have already built a new FeedFlare unit that incorporates the JSON feed data. We’re trying out a few new things here that should make customizing the Tagometer easier for web developers, while at the same time working to maintain a simple copy-and-paste option.

Try it out, let us know what you think, and tell us if you’ve got any ideas on improving this new tool.

73 comments December 20th, 2006

a few more things

• We’ve finally re-done our help section. An RSS feed for new features and changes will be coming soon.
• Include your tags in your blog via our new tagroll.
• Navigating is now easier with editable breadcrumbs.
• Hardcore Internet Explorer fans can rock-out style with an Active Channel feed. Gopher support is under consideration.

26 comments November 13th, 2005

we rolling

Many blogging platforms work well with del.icio.us. But if you are looking for a really simple way to have your latest del.icio.us bookmarks displayed as part of your website, you might want to try our linkrolls. Using it is as simple as pasting a line of HTML into your blog sidebar.

Instead of forcing a specific style, we’ve tried to make them unobtrusive enough that they should blend in with the look of your blog. You can also get your bookmarks as a javascript object, if you want to use them in your own script.

34 comments August 18th, 2005