One of the RSS feeds I use to help keep my finger on the pulse of blogging and all things Web 2.0 is Jeremiah the Web Prophet. Jeremiah recently added a cool little widget called a tag cloud from a company called ZoomCloud to his blog and then wrote a post about it. What is a tag cloud you ask? From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

A tag cloud (more traditionally known as a weighted list in the field of visual design) is a visual depiction of content tags used on a website. Often, more frequently used tags are depicted in a larger font or otherwise emphasized, while the displayed order is generally alphabetical. Thus both finding a tag by alphabet and by popularity is possible. Selecting a single tag within a tag cloud will generally lead to a collection of items that are associated with that tag.

First things first. The tag cloud generated by the ZoomCloud widget is not a traditional tag cloud. In fact, it really isn’t a tag cloud at all. In Flickr and Technorati, two sites that have brought tag clouds to the masses, users create their own tags (‘design’, ‘cats’, ‘California’). When enough people have used the same tag, it begins to show up in the cloud. Once a lot of people have used it, it becomes a visually dominant element, encouraging others to click it ?Äî and subtly discouraging them from creating their own tags. (Source: Zeldman.com). ZoomCloud, on the other hand generates a “tag cloud” by mining your blog and creating tags for the most popular terms. So while a ZoomCloud cloud tag may be a useful navigational tool, it should not be associated with a true tag cloud that develops organically through user contribution and participation.

Even though the ZoomCloud cloud tag is not a true cloud tag, I believe that it is a useful tool that has the following advantages:

• It gives a great visual representation of what your blog is all about to people who come to your blog for the first time.
• It is a great way for your readers to navigate your site. It’s similar to a reader clicking on one of your blog’s categories to see all of the related blog posts, but using a tag cloud for navigation provides a bit more definition and breadth because a tag from a tag cloud usually transcends multiple categories.
• It helps to keep the blog owner on topic. If your blog’s focus is on high-tech marketing, but the term “ex wife” makes it into your tag cloud, this may be a sign that your blog is drifting off topic.

Am I going to add the ZoomCloud script to my blog? I don’t know. The problem is that I only have one sidebar and it’s already looking a bit cluttered. Adding ZoomCloud would just be over the top clutter. If I had another sidebar, I would definitely give it a try.

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Posted in Corporate and Business Blogging, Web 2.0 |
3 Comments »

3 Responses to “Tag Clouds – Visual Navigation for your Website”

1. Jeremiah Owyang Said:
   on May 17th, 2006 at 7:12 am

   You’re right of course, perhaps I should have called it a “CONTENT CLOUD”. Great clarification

   -Jeremiah

2. Jeremiah Owyang Said:
   on May 17th, 2006 at 10:49 am

   Patrick

   I’ve corrected the title in my side nav to appropriatly display, thanks

   http://jeremiahthewebprophet.blogspot.com/

3. Laura’s Winning Ideas » Tag Clouds and Navigation Said:
   on May 23rd, 2006 at 10:19 am

   [...] Shadowbox Studios has more information about Tag Clouds and other blogging tools here. [...]