First Few Days of Hitchhikr

Early this week I announced a new Landmarks for Schools web tool, Hitchhikr, a conference aggregator. As is typical, during the first few days of a new application, the usage stressed not only the technology and programming, but also the interface. It forced me to see the tool in ways that I hadn’t during its initial construction. As a result of the overwhelming usage, and especially after the fantastic comments and suggestions from my friends, I’ve added a few features.

It was immediately obvious that the narrow listing of all conferences, beneath the imminent conferences listing, would not be sufficient for surfing events. So I’ve added a new menu item, All Conferences. This generates a master report of all registered conferences, that can be sorted by popularity, country, state, date, short title, and date registered. You can also click “Match to my Preferences” to list only those conferences that match the preferences that you indicated when you registered a user account.

I’ve also added an FAQ with two questions posted already. Number one’s answer suggests some strategies on inventing tags for a conference event. Number two describes techniques for having your blog recognized by Technorati’s search routines.

Tagging Features of HitchhikrFinally, I added a new program that will generate Technorati tag codes for bloggers. If a conference attendee writes a blog entry about the event, they can go to that conference report in Hitchhikr, and click “Make Tag Code” beneath the listing of suggested conference tags. A web form appears with the current suggested conferences tags. The blogger can add other tags if desired. Clicking the submit button will generate html code that can be pasted in the blog entry, properly tagging the entry blog for Technorati. There is also a second form for the URL of the blog. Submit will ping Technorati, further expediting the blog’s entry in the search engine’s index.

I find the popularity ranking an interesting thing to watch. I probably should add in a way to show what’s going up and what’s going down in the ranking, but that would be strictly for fun. Not surprising, NECC is at the top by a wide margin. Next is Colorado’s TIE conference, which is going on right now in Copper Mountain. Drink lots of water folks, ’cause 9,000 feed can knock the breath right out of you.

Also near the top is an EduBlogs conference in Roa de Duero, Espania, which will begin around the same time as NECC.

I just thought I’d share a progress report. This has been a unique project for me, because it is not strictly an education service.

2¢ Worth!

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