The tagged web
The word tagging is a derivative from the Web 2.0 phenomenon. Tagging refers to using keywords to describe your content on the Internet. The content can be of any form: text, pictures, audios or videos. This helps to categorize information from the deluge of ever increasing content in the big world of WWW. Individuals can then search for content using these keywords.
The tagging system has brought a world of order to an otherwise sea of cluttered information. Earlier one had to take the help of search engines to look for information which functioned with complex algorithms, and the result often wasn't impressive and didn't guarantee relevance. The best thing about tagging, also called "folksonomies," is that it is usually created by users themselves, rather than web masters and hence are very effective.
Limiting the definition of tagging as just a way of categorizing content could be belittling its far higher purpose. It is a system that empowers common man. People are doing this for their own benefit by organizing their own benefit and in the process benefit others.
What is a tag cloud?
To quote from wikipedia, "A tag cloud (or weighted list in visual design) is a visual depiction of content tags used on a website. Often, more frequently used tags are depicted in a larger font or otherwise emphasized, while the displayed order is generally alphabetical. Thus both finding a tag by alphabet and by popularity is possible. Selecting a single tag within a tag cloud will generally lead to a collection of items that are associated with that tag."
Case Studies:
http://del.icio.us/ : It is a social bookmarking website that helps your store your bookmarks (favorites) online, and allows yout to access these booksmarks froma ny computer connected to the Internet. You can use tags to organize and remember your bookmarks
Flickr.com : Its a photo sharing site that allows everyone to post and view pictures. The photos posted are tagged by the user with a keyword that defines the characteristic of the picture.
Technorati : It is a search engine for blogs. It keeps a repository of blogs on just about any category and is categorised with the help of tags that bloggers assign to them.
Posted at 03:16AM Jul 09, 2007 by rainmaker in Personal | Comments[0]