Is Zemanta Better Than Linkify For Bloggers?

Mon, Mar 31, 2008

Regular readers of Web2Center know how much I like Linkify. However, I recently stumbled across another blog content tool that is equally interesting.

I have only used it on 2 client posts so far so I have to take a minute and investigate. Why don’t you join me…

This video/post will let you look over my shoulder so we can see if this Zemanta blogging tool is worth the real estate in your admin panel.

So, here’s what I’ve done so far. I found Zemanta on the GoToWb20.com site as soon as it came out. Actually, I have a Google gadget on my iGoogle homepage that keeps a running list of all the new web 2.0 services that post to GoToWeb20.com.

I visited Zemanta.com and installed the Firefox plugin, restarted and then spent about 5 minutes looking for some sign of it. I found an enable/disable command in the Tools dropdown in Firefox but thats it.

A bit confused, I went back to Zemanta.com and forced myself to read and realized that it would be something that shows up inside the Write Post module of Wordpress. And, sure enough, there it was top right.

So, I start typing and…. nothing. Type some more… nothing. OK, now I am wondering if I have fallen for some sort of unfunny April Fool’s joke.

Then, I thought, perhaps I need to hit the “Save and Continue Editing” button. So, after a refresh, Zemanta went into action.

Multiple choices appeared right there in the Write Post module.

1. A “Gallery” of images appeared in the sidebar, one of which was this image:
Image from Wikipedia
I have no idea how this image fits or why it was suggested but the other images were more closely related to Firefox and Wordpress.

2. An “Articles” list appeared with links to articles from blog like techcrunch.com, readwriteweb.com and, of course, this one from Zemanta.com about “experimental” WP 2.5 support.

And, just below the wysiwyg, 2 more choices.

3. A “Links” list of terms related to the article like web 2.0, Firefox and April Fool’s joke that allow for a one-click link back to Wikipedia or the website itself. I clicked April Fool’s joke and it created the link above.

4. And finally, a set of suggested tags that I won’t really know what is for until I publish this post.