Posts Tagged ‘Zemanta’

Free DAM – Part 2 (Digital Asset Management on the cheap)

OK – so about a month ago I posted a concept about how to use Wordpress as a DAM (Digital Asset Management system).  I felt pretty good about things – but have been thinking about it more and more lately.

I think some of the magic missing was the extra contextual and semantic stuff.  Here is a revised plan which may help with that.

The concept leverages a WordPress plugin which will go out and “harvest” content called WP-O-Matic.  It can be used for the dark side, but we’re using it from the white hat side – only for good.  It allows you to setup campaigns which can go out and get summaries. We will need to modify the plugin to grab complete articles, again – this is only valid for content we own the rights to…stealing content is bad.

After the content grab, we need to get some more context – this is where we leverage the open calais project.  (I still cannot pronounce that!)  They have a web service which can take a feed and add come back with extra goodness.

The OpenCalais Web service analyzes text and provides semantic data such as:

  • Names of persons mentioned in the text
  • Names of companies mentioned in the text
  • Events described in the text such as bankruptcies and mergers

The results of the analysis can later be used to evaluate the text, by humans or machines. For example, a person interested in news stories relating to a specific merger, might find the Open Calais semantic analysis useful in determining the relevance of a specific article.

Then we move to open project #2 – one of my all time favs, Zemanta.  (I’m been a fan of these guys for awhile – Andreaz and the crew have got a great thing going and I applaud them when ever I can.)  So we run the new feed through Zemanta’s API and we get the tags and cats.

Then you add it to the WordPress DAM and bada-boom, we’re storing content.  The next steps will come later – when we add a plugin for users on Wordpress, Drupal and others for easy insertion into their new creations.

OK – let me know, are we moving forward, sideways or off base all together?

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Community starts with 11 moms

Street sign for Wal*Mart Drive near Gordon, Pe...

Image via Wikipedia

As I was looking up different people on Twitter I came across @GeekMommy.  Seemed like a cool Mom who is blogging and using technology.  Then I saw that she was one of Wal-Mart’s 11 Moms.

11 Moms is an effort from Wal-Mart to launch some community and their YouTube.com channel and expand into the Social Media space.

It looks like a great idea – putting some of their promotion into the hands of their own customers is down right brilliant.  Who better to promote Wal-Mart than a group of 11 moms (which is actually 12…think  Big Ten) who shop at Wal-Mart.  If you go to the 11 mom’s profile page at walmart.com, they will point you to each mom’s blog, profile and twitter account.

A funny side note, I was speaking to a guy today that said Twitter was only a “thing” in the Midwest, guess they forgot to ask Wal-Mart.  I think a lot of people don’t understand Twitter – I know I didn’t at first, until I engaged IN the community.

Just think if companies trusted thier customers to become their advocates.  Do you think they would talk about them and treat them the same way?  How refreshing for customers to find out there are real moms talking about real things moms do – and how they are overcoming them.

Zemanta Moment:
Thanks to Zemanta – I found a like to a blog from December 2007.  “Will Wal-Mart’s newest Blogging Initiative Succeed?”  I assumed this was about the 11 moms stuff I was writing about and it turns out – it was not, it was about another blogging initiative.  So it really looks like Wal-Mart is committed to this concept and good for them, it seems like they are starting to figure it out.

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Yea, more zemanta features.

HBW!Image from Flickr

I really like this toll/app zemanta. And now they’ve added more features. Nice work guys.

If you haven;t heard of it yet – it is a plug in for Firefox which, while you are writing your blog post, will suggest pictures, links and keywords for you to include.

It really takes a lot of the dirty work off your hands when posting!

Thanks zemanta team!

Oh  yea – and how did I find out about the update.  Twitter.  So as soon as they had it working, I knew about it.

And how long did it take to install – 0 seconds.  Why, because it’s a service.  I just opened WordPress and blammo, ready to roll.

Yea, ask me again why I love software as a service…hmmm.  LOVE IT!

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More cool blog tools

My Media SystemImage via Wikipedia

I’ve been raving about some blog tools here and also Nick Peters & I over at Wediaup – but here is another example called Skribit.  (I found it in my feeds from Social Media Today.)  The quote is from the SMT post:

As Paul envisioned it – “It’s where you go for tomorrow’s news or a Techmeme for tomorrow.”

It is similar to the blog add-on called Zemanta.  But Skribit is more of a forecasting tool.  It would be cool if someone had more info on Skribit usage – anyone?

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