Tag, you’re it!
I was shocked today when I realized I hadn’t ever written a post on tagging. At the ASTD TechKnowledge conference, when I explained Web 2.0 to a group, tagging was an integral part of the conversation. But tagging requires you to take a step back from the web, and consider how you think.
Folksonomy: a
type of classification system for online content, created by an
individual user who tags information with freely chosen keywords; also,
the cooperation of a group of people to create such a classification
system (Webster’s New Millenium Dictionary of English)
When we’re tagging things, we’re creating a folksonomy. The key word in the definition above is individual. That’s the key to tagging – it’s your individual thoughts and thought processes defining the things in your world. In fact, I’ve bet you’ve used tagging and you didn’t even realize it. According to the Pew Internet Project, in December 2006, 28% of Americans had tagged online content. According to David Weinberger, in an interview for the Pew Internet Project report,
"Tagging lets us organize the vastness of the web … using the categories that matter to us as individuals.
…Tagging also allows social groups to form around similarities of interests and points of view. If you’re using the same tags as I do, we probably share some deep commonalities."
Tagging in the Real World
Let’s back up a little further and go off-line. When you’re arranging things in your planner, or your file cabinets, perhaps you categorize them. You assign key words that make sense to you, based on the content in the folder. Assigning that contextual key word allows you to find that folder again easily. You’ve just created a folksonomy – you’ve just tagged.
Tagging Online
Now, let’s take that concept online. For each blog post I create, I try to also create tags, or descriptive key words. Why? Tagging blog posts provides several things – it allows me to better search my own posts and it also allows search engines to better search my posts. Tagging adds findability to something.
Within the last year, Amazon added tagging to its web site.
I often tag items on Amazon.com. My tags may or may not be useful to you. If I’m searching on curtains for my new home, I might tag an item "new house," which I can then search on later.
Tagging is beautiful in its simplicity. It’s something we’ve been doing all our lives. We’re just moving it online. A large part of the Web 2.0 and collaborative learning movement is understanding that we have a lot to learn from each other as individuals. Web 2.0, through its varied tools, gives us the opportunity to share that knowledge. Tagging is only the beginning.
After the jump, see some more examples and uses of tagging, as well as the sites that depend on it.
Technorati, Flickr, and Delicious
There are a lot of sites out there that make excellent use of tagging. Let’s start with Technorati. Technorati is a search engine that indexes blogs. There are millions of blogs in the world now. Someone had to start organizing them. Technorati indexes by links within blogs as well as by tags. I always try to add tags to the end of my post, coded especially for Technorati. This increases my findability – and my searchability. When I create those tags, I’m not only creating them based on my concept of the content, but based on future searchability for everyone else. Because Technorati is rapidly indexing tags and links, it is able to show you exactly what is happening in the world right now at any given moment.
Flickr is a photo organization and sharing site now run by Yahoo! (This is one of those rare times that Yahoo! beat Google to the punch.) I used to scrapbook everything. But then it’s really difficult to share our photos with Aunt Sally in Idaho, unless she and the scrapbook are in the same location. I moved on to manually posting our photos online, in sort of my own online scrapbook. This solved the sharing problem, with immediate family, but it was a royal pain. Then I discovered Flickr. I’ve been slowly moving my photos, all of them, online to Flickr. Flickr allows me to share my photos with the world, if I want, or only friends and family. I can also instantly see my friends Flickr photos and display Flickr photos on any of my blogs. Each of my Flickr photos is tagged, and Flickr allows for bulk tagging. For instance, each of my photos from an ice storm this past winter is tagged "winter." By following that tag, I can see all of those photos. Taking that one step further, I can also click a link and see all photos in Flickr, that is all Flickr users, that are tagged "winter." Again, findability and searchability, combined with individuality. In Flickr, I’m creating tags more for myself and my friends, rather than the world at large. The world at large is just a shared benefit.
Del.icio.us is a live, social bookmarking site. That means so many things. Basically, I use Del.icio.us to mark pages or articles on the web that I don’t want to forget. I also use Del.icio.us as self-promotion, marking several of my own sites or blog posts. I assign tags to each web site I bookmark on Del.icio.us. At first, I was inconsistent in my use of tags. But the filing folder analogy applies. If you want to find it again, you need to be consistent. Now I make sure that I re-use certain tags and I double-check the existence of my tags in my tag list on Del.icio.us. For example, I no longer have "techwriting" and "technicalwriting" and have settled on the latter. Anyone who searches Del.icio.us for "technicalwriting" is actually searching the tags. Any item tagged "technicalwriting" will display, along with the number of people who have bookmarked the site.
Del.icio.us works for me on a personal basis, allowing me to sort and remember various web sites using my own personal key words. Because Del.icio.us a social site, it also works for me on a professional basis. I use Del.icio.us as self-promotion, bookmarking and tagging several of my own blog posts and web sites.
Tag Clouds
If you look over to the right, you’ll see a tag cloud under the heading
Categories. Typepad allows me to categorize (in addition to tagging) at
a high level. The categories are displayed. The more prominent
categories are the more recently used, and most often used. This is
shown by font size and emphasis. For Write Technology, my most often
used categories are Instructional Design and Web/Tech. This is dynamic,
however, and as I add posts to this blog, the emphasis will shift.
Tag clouds are used on all of the above mentioned sites, as well as Amazon and others. Technorati uses tag clouds to view the most popular tags at any given moment. A tag cloud used on a large site such as Technorati or Flickr can give you an instanteous snapshot of right now. Tags provide for in-the-moment browsing and learning.
Looking at a tag cloud is also an interesting exercise in psychology. If you look at the snapshot I captured to the left, tags such as "me" and "random thoughts" or "my life" demonstrate how individual tagging can be. We are organizing the web, but we are doing it on an individual basis.
Technorati Tags: tagging, Web2.0, Technorati, Del.icio.us, Flickr, Collaborative Learning, social web
Angie Pedersen
May 1st, 2007 at 8:16 am #
Nice overview of tagging – good basic info for beginners, as well as tips for veterans to make using the tools more effective. Nicely done!
Mark Vane
June 22nd, 2007 at 6:57 am #
Hey, I recently added a news widget from http://www.widgetmate.com to my blog. It shows the latest news, and just took a copy and paste to implement. Might interest you too.