Frequently Asked Questions

Before I start

Which blogging platforms do you support?

Right now we support:


We also have a version for Microsoft Live Writer, that supports a number of other platforms through XML-RPC. Users have reported to sucesfuly use it with above platform as well as Vox, SquareSpace, and others. If you would like to see native support for another blogging platform, please ask your blogging provider to get in touch with us, or just CC us on your email (info@zemanta.com) so we can work with them to add the support.

Do I need both the extension and plugin?

No, you need just one. Use the extension on platforms that don't support plugins, like Blogger.com, Wordpress.com and Live Journal. You can use the plug-in on self-hosted Wordpress or Movable Type. Both approaches will give you exactly the same Zemanta experience, so if you just want to test it quickly and easily, install the extension.

What languages do you support?

Right now we support only English, but if you blog in other languages about trademarks and buzzwords Zemanta might still be useful.

Do you care about copyright at all?

Yes, very much. All content that we are recommending is copyright cleared - either clearly licenced as Creative Commons or approved by stock providers.

While I'm using it

How can I insert more then one image into my blog?

You can insert multiple images by dragging the image to your blog posts. See our tutorial on how to do this.

Where do you get images from?

They are selected from Wikimedia Commons, Flickr and various stock photo providers. Selection is based on contextual comparison of your text and the image's title, description and articles they were used in originally.

Where do related articles come from?

We index around 3000 top media sources and numerous blogs of our users.

Can you link to my own pictures and posts?

Yes. You can setup Flickr account in Preferences and we'll recommend pictures from your account.

Can you link to my posts and my selection of blogs?

We added support for this in September 2008. Please read our release announcement to learn how it works.

Why do most of the links point to Wikipedia?

Placing semantically smart links is a hard problem. We decided to give you this tool and let you help us shape its future development. We will be suggesting links to many more sources in the future. Please share your expectations with us.

What's this Reblog button that appears in my blog?

Reblog allows your readers to quickly republish parts of your blog posts on their blogs, while at the same time giving you proper attribution with a backlink. See our Reblog tutorial for more details.

Personalization

What are those little human icons on my images and articles?

This means that this content came from your personal sources, either Flickr account or Friends and Blog feeds. You can setup more of the feeds in your Preferences.

What services do you support?

Right now we support Facebook, MyBlogLog and Twitter for automatic friend aggregation, as well as Flickr for your images.
Please note that we can only recommend content that is actually entered into your friends accounts. If your friends don't have set homepage or real name, we won't be able to recognize them by that name.

Under the hood

How do you decide what is a good recommendation?

We analyze your post through our proprietary natural language processing and semantic algorithms, and statistically compare its contextual framework to our preindexed database of content.

How do I get my posts recommended to others?

By using the Zemanta extension.

Are there any privacy issues I should be aware of?

Right now, we anonymously monitor the text you put into our demo for internal analysis, in order to make Zemanta's choices even more precise. We will not share this information with anyone else outside of our team.

Do you support [browser name]?

The Alpha version supports Mozilla Firefox 2 and 3, and Internet Explorer 6 and 7. If you use one of our plugins, it also works with Safari 3 and Opera 9.

Are you trying to replace the role of the blogger?

Hardly! We're providing the tools to make bloggers more successful at what they do, by accelerating and automating the work of gathering and filtering information. As a result , Zemanta makes your posts more compelling and informative--to keep more readers coming back.

What is an API key?

Think of it as an authentication token that allows us to know who and how people use our service. Every plug-in you install automatically gets one.

Can I use Zemanta API inside my web site or in my own content management system?

Yes, web services API is available for testing. Go to developer.zemanta.com to sign-up.

How to use Zemanta Wordpress on MU?

  1. 1. Upload the Zemanta plug-in to wp-content/plugins directory.
  2. 2. Login as the site admin; then go to Site Admin, -> Options and enable plugins if they are not already enabled (plug-in tick-box at the bottom of Options page); otherwise you can skip this step.
  3. 3. Admins on different blogs should now have the Zemanta plug-in available for activation under Plugins.

Anything else

How can I get Zemanta to give me better recommendations?

Use proper spelling and grammar. Talk about limited number of topics inside the same article. And since every bit of feedback is valuable to us, please report any problems !

Can I remove "Reblog" icon from posts?

You are under no obligation to keep it and can remove it if you wish. You can change its style from Preferences while using Zemanta or even choose to hide it.

Need More Help?

For questions or support, email Jure Cuhalev or go to our Support Forums.