Tags, or descriptors used by individuals to describe an object, are redefining the way we organize information. Tags are used in del.icio.us, Flickr, Rojo and a great number of other web apps to make the information overload easier to access and easier to control. Whether you’re a novice or veteran, the following resources will help you understand how tags are quickly changing the Internet one word at a time.
A Cognitive Analysis of Tagging - Learn why tagging is more popular in the digital realm than categorization.
Steal this bookmark! - Discusses the simplicity, potential, and possible downfalls of tagging.
Tagging: Keeping Tabs On The Net - Takes a look at how businesses can use tagging by highlighting what’s popular on the net.
In the new game of tag, all of us are it - An overview of tagging and why 43things and del.icio.us haven’t resulted in anarchy.
Technorati Launches Tags - Technorati’s take on tagging.
I hate tags - An article questioning the value of tagging in a social shared structure.
Still hate tags - And it’s always good to see a man sticking to his guns!
You guys pick the best topics to write about. Thanks! BTW, Treehouse is excellent, i will be buying my subscription
Thanks, Ben. Glad you enjoy all of it.
It’s insane how much information is out there. I can hardly keep up with my daily reading. If tagging can help better organize that information, so much the better.
What’s interesting is that tagging and categorization require extra human effort to organize this data. It would be nice to be able to get systems (AI) smart enough to do this for us. Yahoo’s keyword/keyterm API is a good first step, but we need to see these things integrated into our content managers and such. There have been some backlash against auto-tagging but I don’t see the problem if you’re able to also append autotagging with human editorial control. Smart tagging system need not only to be able to find the keywords in a post or piece of information, they need to understand the synonyms and concepts that also govern that knowledge.
What I don’t understand is, why can’t CMS’ like WordPress just generate tags based on those you use to file your posts? You’re already checking off a bunch of boxes to say “this post is filed under CSS” for example. The work’s already done! AI or not, sometimes you just can’t beat human intervention.