I read Chris Anderson's "Long Tail" and found it insightful, albeit a bit verbose. While many of the concepts about choice, aggregators, and filters felt obvious, the book effectively highlights their importance. I realized I'd already implemented a "long tail" approach on this blog by creating a tag directory (http//:www.kinlan.co.uk/tag/{anytag}) to link related posts and resources. This led to the development of Topicala (http://www.topicala.com/), a meta-search engine that aggregates results from multiple search engines based on tags.
My tag directory has a cool new feature: Amazon product integration! It pulls book data from Amazon AWS related to each tag. Right now, it adds links to relevant products, but I'm thinking of adding images soon. This latest addition brings the total number of Web 2.0 APIs used in my mashup to four, including Delicious, Yahoo Search API, and Google Blog Search RSS. Check out the examples for tags like RDF, RSS, and Mashup to see it in action.
I'm working on some exciting new features for this site! First up, I'm improving the Tag Directory (more on that soon, including the source code!). Second, instead of linking directly to Amazon, I'll create landing pages with more specific info about the books I recommend. Third, I'm planning a service to advertise Amazon Marketplace books, hoping to help both you and me sell more books. Finally, I'll be writing about my final year telecoms project. Let me know what you think!
I've given my tag directory a fresh look and made it faster with some caching! Check it out and tell me what you think. I'm considering integrating del.icio.us and Amazon product links, and I'd also like to auto-generate OPML feeds for each tag. Your feedback is much appreciated!
