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Tags 4 God...

Preliminaries.... Click here to quickly learn about 'tagging' -- that is, how to easily mark your favorite online photos, blogs, articles, videos... with simple keywords (tags).

But even MORE meaningfully... Below we want to explore how to LEVERAGE this new capability... by COLLABORATIVELY sharing our important (tagged) links with one another, to help accelerate the cause of Christ in our cities.

Simple Example:

• I uploaded some photos from the Unleavened Bread Cafe to MY Flickr account.  As I did that, I included some tags/keywords, including the keyword 'ubcafe'.
• You also uploaded some photos you took at the cafe to YOUR Flickr account and also included the 'ubcafe' tag among others.
• Thus anyone can see our COMBINED sets of recent photos and sort on the tag 'ubcafe'... and La Voila, ALL our pics come up there together.
• Moreover we can now use that LINK to that COMBINED 'pool' of photos... Fact is, we've added that special link to the sidebar at our website (UBcafe.com)...
• Result is... anyone can easily see the growing pool of over 700 photos from the cafe.  Simple, yet impactful -- anyone can readily get a good feel for what a loving, multicultural place it is, simply by looking at all folks who are seen together there.

But wait... that's just at one photo site.  We can do better than that...

Del.icio.us provides anyone an account to save their bookmarks (tagged-items) from ALL OVER the internet.  We encourage you to go sign-up for a free account at del.icio.us and let's tag things collaboratively, from all over the internet!

DeliciousChristians.com is a network of 200+ Christians using del.icio.us to tag things.  You can watch over their shoulders, or join them.  [Contact me].  Soon, we hope del.icio.us will give us the ability to SEARCH our network of tags.  Stay tuned.

Further... In order for us to collaborate well, we need to stablize some common TAGS together.  Thus we're starting this wiki list below to see if we reach some concensus on particular tags...

• tagging
• cityreaching
• web2.0
• theology
• socialnetworking
• church
• innovative
• indianapolis
• indiana
• video
• audio
• podcast
• mp3
• blog
• education
• research
• evangelism
• bible
• urban
• prayer
• care
• compassion
• share
• evangelism
• technology
• humor
• creationism
• evolution
• reformed
• internet
• events
• news
• blews -- if you want your tagged items to appear in the BlewsWire feed (at right).  (Check it out, at Blews.Network!)
• shares -- cataloging people 'sharing' favorite articles they've read with their GoogleReader.  (eg... Neil's Shares)
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• blewstvq -- throw your favorite videos into the 'Blews TV' queue.  Content shared throughout the cityreaching network.
• aastvq -- throw your favorite videos into the 'Ask Anything Saturday TV' queue.
• c4ui -- Center For Urban Innovation (C4UI.org)
• ubcafe -- Unleavened Bread Cafe
• indychristian -- IndyChristian.com  ...and here's our plethora of indychristian (Neil's user-name) tags.
• transformindiana -- TransformIndiana.com
• fhlinternational -- Faith Hope & Love
• chaoticchristians -- ChaoticChristians.com
• [Thus you may want to think of your domain-name as a potential tag for occasional use.]
• barcampindy -- some tag it as barcampindy2008 
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Important:    Del.icio.us has also enhanced this great capability by adding an RSS-feed for each & every tag or combination of tags.  That's a POWERFUL one-two punch.

How might we LEVERAGE these new capabilities?

• Personal Efficiency -- Each of us can now be more efficient at bookmarking/filing sites & URL's we want to find later.
• Sharing Effectiveness -- We now have the ability to watch over each other's shoulders... and learn.
• Create a Search Engine -- Over time, as you read, read, read and tag, tag, tag... you're creating a search-engine of best-in-class links worth saving.  [Over the last year and a half, I have accumulated over 4,000 tagged links.]  Combined with the ability to create a customized Google engine of your own specifications, this becomes a powerful tool... personally... or collaboratively with others.
• Collaborating -- See the BlewsWire concept... By agreeing on some standard tags, especially some unique tags -- eg. 'blews' -- we can effectively consolidate some lists of URL's.  Thus the BlewsWire is simply a consolidation of everyone's 'blews' tag.... and effectively becomes a news-wire of items we've found and appropriately tagged so they'll appear in any webpage carrying the BlewWire.

   

• Conceptually, what we have now is a USER ability to add meta-information (a keyword, or a description, or even you OPINION) to any particular LINK on the web.  That is, you effectively can comment about any site or article, video, sermon, etc.   And del.icio.us has given us a common platform to do so.  Thus I can see the meta info you're adding, and you can see mine (indychristian) and our DeliciousChristians.com network of tags.
• Any Combination... and adding an RSS-feed... is extremely powerful.   Example:   You want to watch for people tagging say, 'christians' and 'evolution'.... and add the combo's RSS-feed to your Google Reader.  Thus you're alerted to specific things cropping up on the web you'd like to possibly know about.
• Javascripting for RSS-feeds...  Btw, even if you're not familiar with how to code javascript to pull a particular RSS-feed into your blog or webpage, there are places to generate such code for your convenience.  Now think of all the possibilities by combining these (above) capabilities.  [That's the secret behind how we pull the BlewsWire into any webpage... such as the feed show at right.]
• Include these capabilities in 'mashups' ???
• CAVEAT:   Del.icio.us does not seem to be consistent (yet) re updating their consolidated list of URL's per a given tag.  Example:  Everyone tagging items with the unique 'blews' tag doesn't necessarily show up immediately (or even sometimes, at all) among the consolidated list.  That is, the BlewsWire is not 100% stable (yet).  Del.icio.us has promised a great upgrade this fall (2007).  We'll see.
• Networking... Do you wish you could perhaps find some innovative taggers who are 'reformed'?  Check out the people who frequently use that tag
• Alerting... (example) The ChaoticChristians broadcast encourages their listeners to tag stuff using 'chaoticchristians' hosts to review and consider for using in upcoming shows.  Or tag things 'c4ui' as great links for the Center For Urban Innovation to consider.  [Students will also be tagging things 'c4ui' -- Are you interested in seeing what they come up with?]
• Using Tagging to create an RSS-feed workaround for existing church/ministry websites not otherwise able to easily create an RSS-feed.  
• Btw, Facebook now has a del.icio.us app -- thus your tags are readily shared further yet... via your Facebook Profile.
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Stray Thoughts to keep track of...

• Why are tags delicious?
• Revisit... "Tags4God -- an upcoming strategy" 
• Great tagging adventures? 
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TAGGING -- especially perhaps CHRISTIAN and TAGGING.

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