Thursday, July 8, 2010

Zemanta and your Blog: how to add and remove it

This article is about Zemanta and your blog:  what it is, how to add it, and how to delete it.

Overview

Zemanta - a tool for "blogging smarter", which had to be downloaded and installed into your browser.   Then in 2010, they announced a closer integration between Google and Zemanata:  they set up a Google-hosted page where you could install Zemanta into Blogger with pretty much a single click.
In June 2009, Google announced

Zemanata was originally basically an assistant that sits inside Blogger while you're writing, and makes suggestions about related things (pictures, articles etc) that you might like to link to. It's fine in theory (although I'd prefer to control my own research process, and take responsibility myself for meeting copyright conditions), however I found real performance issues when I tried to use it - which is why I went looking for the removal instructions! Some people at Blogger clearly like it though, so it must have some advantages.

I original thought that there may be some more Zemanta integration coming:  eg options inside Blogger for enabling  and disabling it and setting the user-options/preferences.     However Zemanta has now turned into a content advertising network - ie a direct competitor for Google - so that won't be happening.

Below is updated information about adding Zemanata to blogs and web-browsers, and the original add and delete instructions from 2010, preserved for prosterity!.


How to add Zemanta to your Blog

Current situation, as at August 2014

Zemanata cannot currently be directly added to Blogger.
However there is a plug-in for Wordpress, and it can be added to Chrome and Firefox.  Click here to go to the installation instructions, and then click on the type of installation you want.


Original instructions - no longer work

To turn Zemanta on for your blog:
  • Log into Blogger with a Google account that has admin-rights on the blog which you want to use Zemanta with

  • Click here to add the Zemanta gadget
  • In the window that opens, choose the Blog from the drop-down list
  • Click the orange "Add Zemanta" arrow.



Immediately after clicking the arrow, you are taken to the Post Editor with a new post for the blog that you selected.   There is an extra gadget showing on the right hand side of the editing window.  This gadget will be on the screen every time that you edit a post.

It's not currently available in the Page editor - but if you really want to use it while writing a Page, then just write the contents in a Post, save it as draft (ie don't publish), and use the HTML copy/paste approach described in Moving a Post from one Blog to Another.


How to remove Zemanta from your Blog

  • Log into Blogger with a Google account that has admin-rights on the blog which you want to remove Zemanta from
  • Open the Post Editor (eg by clicking New Post).
  • In the top row of the Zemanta gadget, at the right hand side, there's a small down arrow.  Click the arrow and choose "Remove this gadget".
  •  Click Ok.



Some people reported that removing it from Chrome was different:  they said that there you would not see
the small drop-down arrow, but instead need to look in the browser's address bar and use the  Zemanta icon on the right hand side, which has an option to isable Zemanta for blogs.   However this clearly isn't the case now, because I just removed it from Chrome to make the pictures above.   It may be that these instructions apply if you have used some other method to install a toolbar:  in this case, you may need to go into the Control Panel and use Add/Remove Programs to remove it.



Related Articles


Moving a Post from one Blog to Another

Copyright, Blogs and Bloggers

The difference between Pages and Posts

Zemanta - a tool for "blogging smarter" .

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1 comment:

  1. hey,nice site,thank u very much,can i also have answer how to create a drop-down navigation menu in blogger,

    ReplyDelete