The tagging hype cycle

nicholasjon@nicholasjon.com (Nick) — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 19:58:08 GMT

Tagging is dead, long live tagging.

Link: http://tagsonomy.com/index.php/the-tagging-hype-cycle/

How 2005 of me

nicholasjon@nicholasjon.com (Nick) — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 19:53:13 GMT

In a fit of realizing this site could use some reorganization-slash-search-slash-wayfinding, and not being prepared to take all the steps necessary for that to happen right now, I added a tag cloud after a year and a half without one.

I don’t know what this does for Zeldman’s theory. Perhaps long hair is in again?

You're It!

nicholasjon@nicholasjon.com (Nick) — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 20:31:43 GMT

A whole site devoted to the theory of tags, tag clouds and folksonomies

Link: http://tagsonomy.com/

Ontology is Overrated

nicholasjon@nicholasjon.com (Nick) — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 20:31:39 GMT

Clay Shirky puts a nail in the coffin of the “categorization” people

Link: http://shirky.com/writings/ontology_overrated.html

Tag Clouds: A Response

nicholasjon@nicholasjon.com (Nick) — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 19:55:00 GMT

Note: The following is a response to Tag Clouds II. Please be sure to read Mr. Zeldman's full post so as to better understand where I'm coming from in the text below.

Tags are like links. Shown in “raw popularity mode” they simply point to the content that's most popular. I fully agree with Mr. Zeldman that if you're running a many-authored site, tags are in fact a fantastic way to cut straight to content that's the most popular.

Where I think Mr. Zeldman's discomfort with tag clouds begins is the fact that “popularity” is about as far as tags (and also link-trackers) have come in terms of their sophistication.

When tag clouds are sliced yet again — by time, another tag or two, a keyword, an author — they start showing their power. Technorati and Blogdex know this about links, and slice their data according to time (typically one day). Del.ico.us, which serves a similar purpose to Blogdex and Technorati but works on a totally different principle, uses time to slice the information presented on their main page as well.

This use of tag clouds shows that they are just in their infancy. There's a lot more to them we haven't seen publicly “done” yet. We've really only just begun “tagging” things. (To “tag” something having a slightly more open ended meaning than simple “categorization.”) The best display method we've got at this point is simply showing “what's popular” in any given raw data cloud, much as do the afore mentioned link-tracking sites.

I agree with Mr. Zeldman that these “popularity meters” are not particularly useful except as a sort of general barometer of the large-scale network effects taking place in the blogosphere, and certainly that they do bury unique content over time.

But what about taking them to the next level? What about applying some network principles to them? What about “smart tags?” Tags that know “people who used this tag for this photo/link/post also used this other tag.” Or that “these three tags” tend to be used together when categorizing something.

Cutting the data in this way can turn a simple popularity cloud into a fantastic data mining technique. The relationships between the tags are what's important, not so much the tags themselves — in this way they're just a means to a greater end. If, of course, someone's willing to take them to the next level.

Update: I haven't worked it all out yet, but this chapter from Cluetrain fits in here somewhere, I'm sure of it.

nicholasjon.com :: a weblog >> posts tagged: tags

The tagging hype cycle

How 2005 of me

You're It!

Ontology is Overrated

Tag Clouds: A Response