Tuesday 7 July 2009

Let others find your most read blogposts via PostRank

[Look at the right side bar to see the blogpost ranking in action]

The last few months many people have been writing about the surplus of networks and finding the content you are looking for as quickly and simple as possible in a knowledge world.

Although I agree that linking, filtering and constructing are just a couple of qualities that a contemporary learner (and I see all of the contemporary professionals as learners) should have to keep updated on the latest content and knowledge in a particular field, it is not easy to disseminate your own knowledge. Many knowledge workers mention many options: feeds, streams, blogs, collaborative networks... but at the end of the day you yourself need to stay on top of what people are interested in. But if networks are getting increasingly important, it will be essential to provide your network(s) with immediate extra's.

So what part of your brain do others want to pick? What niche might you have? In order to do this you can use a number of analytic tools, but those tools are just providing data for your own interest. What about data that is of immediate use to your own network? Today I came across an easy to use widget that gives just that bit of extra: PostRank. This widget extrapolates your most read blogposts, enabling new readers to take a look at those particular posts others found interesting, thus increasing the chance of your posts being followed. And in addition, if they are interested in case those readers have a specific topic of interest, they can search on that specific topic in the lower end of the widget (look at the widget on the side).

In addition to this widget they have a twitter widget for educational blogs as well: http://twitter.com/pr_education (get picked up in this twitter by adding #postrank & #education) through which I found the link to a post of Stephen's Web on 'Should Learning be Free and Open?' written by Curt Bonk.

By the way Stephen Downes Ol'Daily is one of my favorite ways to stay on top of what experienced learners have to say about learning... and I do not think the ol'daily has a official hyped term to define what it does, it is just the thing to get connected to if you are interested in learning content (I still have a lot to learn and still have a lot of things to change in order to improve dissemination of interesting learning topics).

Thanks to the global educational blogger Christian Kreutz for getting me posted on postrank.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Ignatia, it's great that you started featuring your best posts. These posts are buried in your blog and it's not easy to find them. You are promoting yourself by helping visitors find old good content in your blog. I always wanted to chat with you to discuss how to promote yourself by Creating a Better Blog We only discussed the About Me page.

    ReplyDelete
  2. hi Eduardo! Indeed, we wer going to discuss this topic. I am going to pick-up on your suggestion. Currently in and out on vacation, but we will meet and discuss. Thank you for offering it and reminding me.

    ReplyDelete