It depends completely on how much you insist on controlling your brand and how much you enable your users / participants to "be" your brand.
It's getting to the point where your brand is a by-product of the experience of the users; that experience IS the brand, and your USERS ARE the brand.
Doug Haslam
· 2 years ago
As a tiny example of what you say-- boo me if I am misreading-- I use technorati tags on my Gischeleman blog and noticed that most of my traffic comes from technorati tags (webkinz was a recent example).
Chris Doelle
· 2 years ago
You are right on... I love it when a random thought turns out to be brilliant like that. :)
You are full of something? It, maybe. I think in this instance you are right on.
Bob LeDrew
· 2 years ago
This is a very McLuhanesque thought. Tags are the site; the medium is the message. Will tag clouds become a new form of writing?
brokenengine
· 2 years ago
I have only recently been adding tags to my blog posts. For one thing, I just didn't know I had the option before. And another, I don't like the fact that they clutter my blog posts. I am going to look into whether they can be hidden on my page but still there to be searchable...
Doug Haslam
· 2 years ago
What I didn't say in my first comment-- I think you are definitely on to something, Chris. The "medium is the message" comment by Bob is right in my line of understanding as well: Even blogs aren't so different except that it is a new medium-- it's what you say that counts-- that is also true in my profession, PR--.
(McLuhan taps me on shoulder, says: "You know nothing of my work. How you ever got into the media business at all is totally amazing." Woody Allen taps me on shoulder, says: "You know nothing of my work, either. To quote my best-known film out of context betrays your crass ignorance.")
Dale Cruse
· 2 years ago
For once I disagree with you, Chris!
"Tags are your website?" No. That's like saying a card catalog is a book. It's not. It's a means to an end, but not the end.
Dale -- the point (as I choose to understand it, anyway!) is that the tags are pointers to everything that is being said about you or about whatever topic you are supporting on your site. Of course the tags _themselves_ are not the website, it's everything that is tagged. "Things That are Tagged Are Your New Website" just doesn't look as good on a t-shirt.
Whitney
· 2 years ago
I have this blog I need to host, so the tags are more doable- but in the meantime, I have a post over at Parent's Eye View about how we are all internet electricians, responsbile for hooking up the wires, making the connections, and letting people pull the switches to the stuff they find interesting. Without the links, tags and the like, the wires don;t connect and the bigger lightbulbs caused by great ideas never get ignited.
buns and chou chou
· 2 years ago
just starting to feel this. thanks for putting into words.
ZuDfunck
· 2 years ago
Good stuff...
I tag as a secondary act after posting.
I rarely pursue the tag after that,
But I do allow it in addition to bookmarking and burning feeds.
All Comments
It's getting to the point where your brand is a by-product of the experience of the users; that experience IS the brand, and your USERS ARE the brand.
(McLuhan taps me on shoulder, says: "You know nothing of my work. How you ever got into the media business at all is totally amazing."
Woody Allen taps me on shoulder, says: "You know nothing of my work, either. To quote my best-known film out of context betrays your crass ignorance.")
"Tags are your website?" No. That's like saying a card catalog is a book. It's not. It's a means to an end, but not the end.
Tools are tools, but content is still king. Check out Zeldman's latest post for evidence. http://www.zeldman.com/2007/03/15/web-1-point-0...
Dale -- the point (as I choose to understand it, anyway!) is that the tags are pointers to everything that is being said about you or about whatever topic you are supporting on your site. Of course the tags _themselves_ are not the website, it's everything that is tagged. "Things That are Tagged Are Your New Website" just doesn't look as good on a t-shirt.
Without the links, tags and the like, the wires don;t connect and the bigger lightbulbs caused by great ideas never get ignited.
I tag as a secondary act after posting.
I rarely pursue the tag after that,
But I do allow it in addition to bookmarking and burning feeds.
I want permanent contact, not a fleeting moment.
I am not a whore! I'm a blogger.