Image by Zemanta via CrunchBase
It’s been a while since I wrote about the latest Web 2.0 or blogging tools that I use, and there are a bunch of new ones. The latest and greatest Blog tool I’ve been using is Zemanta.
If you’ve been a regular follower of my blog you’ll have noticed the links in the bottom of my posts and a *Reblog* button.
I don’t remember who’s blog I first saw Zemanta on but I started using it a while ago and have really enjoyed the extra layer of information and ease it adds to my blogging.
I use Zemanta on all of my blogs, even the ones at HP, where I just coordinate the actual blog posting for some of our VP’s
The Zemanta Plugins
I use a blog editor almost every time I write a blog post. My editor of choice was originally Windows Live Writer but after a while I started using ScribeFire, especially for shorter posts. When Zemanta first came out as a FireFox plugin, I would write my post in ScribeFire, save it as a draft in WordPress and then open WordPress and make a few final tweaks using Zemanta. It was an extra step but I found it worth it.
But when Zemanta came out with a Windows Live Writer plugin this sealed the deal and brought me back to my once beloved Windows only blog editor (seriously it’s one of the main reasons I don’t completely switch to Linux for personal use).
Zemanta shows up in a right hand panel in WLW (see screen grab to the right). It offers links to Wikipedia, home pages and maps. It also makes it easy to add links to other related blog articles from around their network as well as Creative Commons images. All of these are simple to use, just click on any object and Zemanta automatically embeds the object in your post. Very slick.
If you don’t use Windows Live Writer, besides the FireFox plugin they also have an Internet Explorer plugin.
I Love Links
Way back in the early dawn of blogging having a lot of links in your post (ones that didn’t just link to your own posts that is) was a good thing. It’s a rare post of mine that doesn’t have at least 5 links in it. Oh sure your SEO’s out there will tell you that your giving up valuable Google juice, but who cares.
Zemanta makes it easy to add links to Wikipedia, as well as Amazon. If you have an affiliate account with Amazon it will even add the code needed into the link. I especially love the related articles by Zemanta. I don’t know why but I really enjoy offering additional resources not related to my blog.
I Love Pictures
Over the last 6 months I have really tried to make more liberal use of photos. It just makes blogs more fun to read. Zemanta makes this easy as well. Zemanta pulls in tons of images from Flickr and Wikipedia. If you have your own Flickr account it will even pull your photos into its suggestions.
Just Plain Cool
I had a chance to meet some of the Zemanta guys at BlogWorld, and then again at Defrag.
I found out that Zemanta originally started off as a service for matching related articles inside a large media company in Eastern Europe. They have recently received VC funding from Fred Wilson’s firm and continue to announce cool new partnerships with other cool Web 2.0 companies.
After talking with the guys it became obvious to me that besides just blogging there are a lot of applications inside the Enterprise, but I’m sure that’ll come later.
Zemanta is totally free. I’m not sure what their revenue model will be. It seems like some sort of freemium model will make the most sense or maybe they’ll enter the Enterprise sooner than later. Either way, I’m a big fan and I wish them the best of luck.
If you want to try Zemanta without having to download or install anything just hit the reblog button on the bottom of this post, go ahead you know you want to.
Technorati Tags: zemanta,blogging,blogging tools,Windows Live Writer,FireFox,plugin
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!