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Archive for the ‘taglets’ Category:
Taglets Feeder WP plugin now available on Wordpress.org
Download and installation of the Taglets Feeder Wordpress plugin should now be automatic via Wordpress.org: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/taglets-feeder/
Within your blog, go to url: /wp-admin/plugin-install.php?tab=plugin-information&plugin=taglets-feeder
The plugin automatically promotes your blog via Taglets.org every time you publish a new blog entry.
Taglets.org API examples and sample code
Taglets.org is founded on the idea that no matter how brilliant you and your coworkers are (or think you are), there are always going to be smarter people outside of your company. That’s why it’s an API and platform first, so that people smarter than we are can exploit the platform in ways we would never think of. Originally, we weren’t even going to build a user-interface at all, but then we decided we needed something to demonstrate the platform and as a quick-start for non-developer end-users, and thus, we built the www.taglets.org website.
However, the platform and API are still the focus. Twitter, Friendfeed, Facebook, and even the iPhone, have all demonstrated that an API is a powerful way to facilitate prototyping and innovation. The openness of the Internet itself is perhaps the world’s most successful example.
It is with that in mind, that we have been working to provide some tools to jump-start development with the Taglets API.
Taglets API for Java Developers
Mark has released an open-source package that makes it easy for Java developers to use the Taglets API. It works with the Groovy scripting language. Download it here: http://code.google.com/p/tagletsapi/
PHP POST Outlet Example
Mark also built a very simple PHP script that demonstrates how to write an HTTP POST Taglets outlet script. In the settings for a tag, there is an option called HTTP:
In the data entry field, you put the url of a script on your web site, such as http://myserver.com/myscript.php. When a comment is posted to that tag, the Taglets.org platform will invoke that script using HTTP POST with the tag name and comment as parameters (as though a user had typed them into a form and clicked ‘Submit’). The example shows how a script can capture the tag comments to store them, and later display them to users. Most importantly, it shows how to write a script that interfaces to the Taglets platform as a HTTP POST outlet. Get the PHP code here.
Taglets.org Wordpress Plugin
We’ve also put together a simple Wordpress plugin called Taglets Feeder that will send comments to tags when you publish a blog post. As every WP user knows, when creating a blog post, you can specify tags associated with the post, as shown below:
For each tag specified (”taglets” and “wordpress” in the above screenshot), when you publish the post, the Taglets Feeder plugin will send a comment on that tag to Taglets.org that looks like: “[post title] [short url]”
Everyone (and every “thing”) following those tags at Taglets.org will receive the comment via the “outlets” they have specified, email, twitter, or HTTP POST.
In addition, the plugin has a setting for a “fixed tag” as shown below:
This “fixed tag” setting causes the plugin to send a comment to that specified tag, in addition to the tags specified with the blog post. This can be used, for instance, to always send a comment to a tag named for your blog (e.g. “mrblog”), whenever you publish a new blog post.
Of course the plugin includes the PHP source code and is released under the GPL to use as a base for anyone wishing to expand on it.
Get the plugin from Wordpress.org: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/taglets-feeder/ or type following directly on your WP blog: /wp-admin/plugin-install.php?tab=plugin-information&plugin=taglets-feeder
Looks like Scoble is winning the Tagets game so far
Stuart suggested a little game of “tag” using Taglets.org
So let’s start this game. I’ve created a couple of tags. I’ve kept them simple. “Winer” and “Scoble”
Scoble appears to be winning, so far:
Come on folks, give Dave some love! 
Introducing taglets.org
A little over a month ago, my good friend and colleague, Mark Petrovic, had an idea for a project/service. That idea evolved into taglets.org, which we introduced today.
At first, to be honest, it was not obvious to me how it would be used or by whom. But Mark is smart and I trust him. So that was enough for me. It was also a perfect opportunity to get some hands-on experience with the Google App Engine platform.
Now that the idea is actually operational and I’ve had some time to play with it, I’m very intrigued by the potential for Taglets. It’s got some of the traits of the biggest ideas, being simple, general, and flexible. As Mark says:
The service is first a platform, with a reference implementation layered over it via the www.taglets.org web site, with the platform defined by a public API that developers can use to create and manage users, tags, and comments.
While it may look at first glance that this is a twitter clone of some kind, the fact is, Taglets is not intended to replace anything else. It’s fundamentally different. For marketing people, that spells disaster; but in this case, that’s fine, because many of the best ideas never had a business plan, target market, or clear demand. If you ask “what problem does this solve” the answer will be, “you tell us.” It’s open and flexible, and like many things before it, we have no idea how Taglets.org might get used, ultimately.
Here are some examples of how Taglets.org is different:
- The followers of a tag are anonymous. A tag is the target (to-address) of a message (comment) but unlike Twitter et al, that tag is not necessarily associated with a particular recipient/person/entity. Think of this like the street number on a house. Anybody outside that house can learn that location’s address (tag) “123 cherry lane” by simply observing it and anyone can send a message to that “tag” by postal service. But that doesn’t mean they actually know who lives there or, in other words, who they are sending to. One can learn the address of the house, it’s “tag”, simply by driving by. They can’t learn who lives in the house by name, yet they can still send a message to that “tag” – the people inside the house determine who actually receives that message, without the sender being aware of how their message was ultimately distributed.
- The sender of a message (comment) is anonymous. The sender may elect to include a “return address” or sender identification of some kind within the content of the message, but there is no “from-address” associated with a comment.
- Comments are transitory. There is no history (timeline). Comments posted to a tag are distributed to the followers of that tag (via email, Twitter DM, or HTTP POST) and discarded by Taglets. Tags can be searched. Comments cannot be. Obviously, if you receive Taglets.org notifications via Twitter DM, they are archived at Twitter, but they are not archived at Taglets.org itself.
- Tags are public. Anyone can search a tag, by name or description (keywords). Anyone can create a tag. Anyone can follow any tag. No follower knows who else follows the same tag.
- Tag names and descriptions are self-describing and have no formal meaning to Taglets.org. The creator of a tag describes what that tag refers to with a description field, but this is opaque to the taglets.org service itself (simple free-form text). Users will decide on the conventions they want to use in tag names and tag descriptions, similar to the way that twitter status messages can be overloaded with links, photos, hashtags, and @user constructs.
Taglets.org allows a person to send a message to “something” even if that “something” is not yet tagged and has no recipients. They can simply create a tag for it and send a comment, even if it goes to nobody.
A “tag” can be something as finite as, say, a device’s MAC ethernet address, or as abstract as an idea. It can be a person, a category, a blog name, a company, or a product.
When you follow a tag, you can have updates delivered via email or Twitter account (Security note: Taglets.org never requires or stores your Twitter password). You can can also tell Taglets.org to POST to a specific web page when a comment arrives for the tag. This might be used for a Wordpress hook, for instance, or to trigger some other action via PHP script, or similar.
You can learn more at the Overview page on the Taglets.org site. There’s also a Google Group at: http://groups.google.com/group/taglets
