My First Word Cloud

Today, I learned to create a "wordle." Better known as a "word cloud," this collection of single words summarizes something. I know.......most bloggers already have word clouds that regularly appear on their blogs. For me, learning to create a wordle was not something that seemed important enough to invest the time it might require.

But I changed my mind when I read today's newspaper. There it was........a wordle that occupied half a page.......chosen words that summarized significant events occurring in 2009! Wordles have made it to the mainstream news media.

Now I was inspired. I wanted a wordle for my blog. So I set about learning how to develop a wordle for publication here on Mississippi Memories. Not just any wordle would do, I might add. I wanted to create something unique, one in which the words would represent people, places, and things that were recurring subjects of posts published on this blog throughout the year. So here it is folks.....my first word cloud.

I must admit that I needed help.....I am not a creative person....and what I found were many web sites that allow a novice like me to develop simple word clouds. In creating the wordle above, I used the web site http://www.wordle.com.

The web site offers three choices of methods for creating word clouds. I chose the first of the three methods, one that required me to type in the actual words that I wanted to appear in the finished wordle. The second method requires the user to type in the URL where the program will automatically search text for words that will be included in the resulting word cloud. The third choice involves choosing an already existing wordle from a gallery of those

created by other users. In addition, the web site allows a choice of several layouts for the finished word cloud, i.e., vertical, horizontal, half-and-half, along with a few others, to select a font from a long list of choices, and to choose from several color schemes that include both black and white and white and black.

This was a fun experience, and it made me feel "creative."

But will there be other wordles on my blogs? We'll see.