As I mentioned over the weekend, Dave Winer and others are freaking out over Microsoft’s Smart Tag feature with Winer writing,
I told a reporter yesterday that I would support Smart Tags if they allowed me to hack my links into Microsoft.Com, instead of the other way around.
Well, gee Dave — Microsoft has an entire web site devoted to helping third party developers create their own Smart Tags. See OfficeSmartTags.Com.
Which of course doesn’t solve the main problem with the feature. I don’t want to have to rely on developers to provide me with their Smart Tags, I want to be able to define my own personal set easily and on the fly.
For example, suppose I’m doing research on a topic such as musket rifles. Why not, for example, allow me to highlight a word or phrase, right click, and then select an “Add Smart Tag” option. Selecting this would bring a dialogue box allowing me to quickly specify where I want this Smart Tag to take me.
I should also be able to create simple generic rules or templates for Smart Tags. I’d probably route most of the Smart Tags to Google searches on the terms, so why not allow me to create a generic Google search rule and then simply create a Smart Tag that would submit the word or phrase to Google with just a couple clicks?
Now that would be interesting.
Was ist das?