When WordPress released version 2.3 one of the major changes they made was the introduction of tags but rather than using them to connect outward to a service like Technorati they faced the tags inwards. Tags in WordPress became nothing more than a different way to categorize your posts within you own blog.

From the time that I first found out about this I have argued against it as the whole idea of tags in the first place was to create links to the larger conversation that might be going on in the blogosphere with the connector being those self same tags. The idea of turning the tags inward towards one’s own blog has always strike me as being a step backward - a way of changing the conversation into an internal closed conversation that doesn’t benefit anyone.

So how do those folks who went through the change to this so-called improvement; or the folks just starting out with WP 2.3 get back to the old way of using the tags?

Well tonight I ran across a new plugin for WordPress 2.3 that will let you change the WP Tags to Technorati tags. The kind that we are all so use to seeing at the end of posts. I haven’t tried the plugin out myself because I never did do the conversion so I can’t verify how well it works but for those of you wanting to give it a try head over to Geeky Ramblings where David has made it available for all.

Listening to: Tom Cloud - In Search Of Sunrise 6 - Ibiza - Mercury Room

Conversation Tags: WordPress 2.3, Tags, Technorati