At the UIE Web App Summit in Monterey, Thomas Vander Wal discussed the concepts, implications, and best practices behind Tagging in Your Web World:
- Tag: simple data or metadata applied to an object that can be used for sorting or personal markers.
- Folksonomy: the result of personal free tagging of objects for one’s own retrieval often done in a social environment. Not so much categorizing but rather providing a means to connect their vocabulary to their understanding. Every person is an expert in their own vocabulary.
- Business value of tagging: improved understanding of customers, current terminology; target messages to language & taste; improved refindability; increased context; cost effective means of building a taxonomy.
- 0.85% of people on the Web use tags.
- People tag: for their own value/use; to add context; to enable refindability; to state their interests; for social sharing.
- Social sharing can happen at multiple levels: personal, selective (specific group), collective, and mob (everyone).
- Taxonomies are consistent and naming controlled. Folksonomies are emergent and based on people’s vocabulary.
- Tagging can happen wherever there is a digital object or marker.