What I am talking about is localize such plugins and make them part of your browser. If you think that it’s not possible then think again. There’s a wonderful Firefox extension that just takes your blogging capabilities to a new level. This extension is called as Zemanta. Zemanta is a such a wonderful piece of utility for a blogger. As your write a post, based on the keywords and your settings it can show you images related to the post and also other blog stories which are related to the post you are writing.

And this is not it, you can insert those images with a single click and add the stories as related stories in your blog post. Zemanta sits comfortably in your wordpress or other blogging platform’s dashboard and provides you with the following features:

1. Related Photos: The photos are shown in the zemanta side bar which sites in your dashboard. All the pictures are very relevant to the blog post that you are writing and best part is that all these images are copyright cleared. That means you don’t have to worry about the copyright. The images can be dragged and dropped or just clicked to get them inserted in your post. You can also filter the available images based on specific keywords.

2. Related Articles: The related articles are from the top 300 odd media sources and hence are very relevant and authentic.

3. Automatic Links: Once you have finished writing a post you might want to link to various important keywords. This can be done pretty easily as well. Just click the links which Zemanta has automatically identified and the links get inserted in your blog corresponding to the keywords. It looks something like this:

4. Automatic Tags: How about some SEO and ways to build traffic. Automatic tags is another smart features which automatically picks up words to create tags for various keywords in your blog post.

Let us now see what platforms are supported by this wonderful tool.

• Wordpress.com
• Self-hosted Wordpress.org 2.1+
• Blogger.com
• TypePad
• Ning
• MySpace
• LiveJournal
• MovableType
• Tumblr
• Drupal

Because Zemanta is semantically so very smart that it even keeps tracks of what you have posted using Zemanta and in future will recommend your post to other bloggers who blog on a similar topic. Another great way to build your back links.

What are the ways to use Zemanta?

Well there are more than one. You can install the Firefox extension which is compatible with Firefox 2 and 3. You can also download the plugin available for Internet Explorer 6 and 7. If this is not enough you can get the platform independent plugins for your CMS (but I don’t think this is the best option as it has to contact your host and work like a normal plugin.

Companies like DISQUS and Seesmic are bringing in new ideas and technologies which will fuel the enhancement on the commenting system front and take it to the next level, if not already there. These two companies recently partnered to offer a better version of their services which include a video reply and the social concept of commenting.

Let’s talk about DISQUS; it’s a service which is dedicated to make commenting on sites, easier, faster, interactive and engaging and most importantly Spam-free.

There are two parts to this service, 1) Just create a profile and start commenting on the sites which have this plugin activated 2) Create a profile and install this plugin on your own site to enhance the commenting system on the site.

Part 1(can be used as an SEO tool for your blog), Creating a profile on DISQUS: Once you register your profile with the service, spend some time on configuring your preferences/setting and filling up your profile page.

Now whenever you leave a comment on the site which has this pluggin installed it will automatically pull your information from the site and show it to the users.

This can become one of the most powerful SEO services and techniques in the time to come.

We registered with DISQUS and left a comment on a site which has this plugin installed. In the image below I will show you how this plugin really works and how efficiently it can help you improve your traffic stats. This image is taken from one of the sites where we left a comment to show you an example of how it can be SEO’ed (Sorry about that!)

Let’s go through the image above point by point:

1. Once you leave a comment that’s how your image will be displayed on the page, provided you have your information filled on the DISQUS profile page. The larger image with more information will be show to the users once the mouse moves on the profile display image or the comment title.
2. Your title and username is directly pulled from the DISQUS server.
3. Each of these comments can be voted for or against and that’s how the comments gain points. Point number 8 shows the buttons where you can vote up or down on a comment.
4. This pulls the information of your site and other services like Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Flickr, etc.. and shows it on your comment.
5. If you linked your twitter account with your DISQUS account then it will show your last status msg from Twitter.
6. Recent comments will be shown to other users who are browsing your profile. These comment will be pulled from across the web not just one site.
7. Show the information of the comment. For example: Time of the last comment, Site of the last comment and the Post of the last comment
8. Let you vote for or against a comment

Now if you configure this plugin according and start visiting blogs which use this plugin, it can bring lot of new visitors to your blog. 

Be nice and do not spread spam because you want to show up on all comments pages.

In addition it provides other features on your site such as

• Logging in or out before commenting
• Subscribing to a particular thread
• Or go to “My Comments” or “Community Page” directly.

So register with DISQUS, configure your profiles and settings page, install it on your blog and comment away!!