Tagging
Gene Smith
CanUX 2007 • Banff, Alberta

“When the hype wears down... I think
tagging will have altered the information
landscape in a fundamental way”
- Jon Udell

Tagging is...
• Simple, flexible, extensible
• Quick
• Social
• Collaborative

Social
Information
Software
Architecture
Computer-mediated
Organizing info so
collaboration and
others can find it
sharing
Tagging
Social metadata
Personal Information
Management
Organizing your information to get
things done

User Resource
Tags
Tagging System

“When the hype wears down... I think
tagging will have altered the information
landscape in a fundamental way”
- Jon Udell

vs.

Volume
Time

Volume
Time
?

Landscape
• Static ➔ Dynamic
• Low(er) Volume ➔ High(er) Volume
• Localized ➔ Ubiquitous and Immersive
• Centralized ➔ Distributed
• Authoritarian ➔ Social

“Believe it or not, we are all becoming
librarians... “
“As the Internet provides users with the
freedom to publish information, it quietly
burdens them with the responsibility to
organize that information”
- Peter Morville & Lou Rosenfeld

Five Motivations
• Ease of Use
• Personal Information Management
• Collaboration and Sharing
• Fun
• Self Expression

Exercise
• Tag vase with
• Tag vase with
stickies stickies
• Fold them in half
• Place them on the
outside
• Place them inside

Social Tagging
• Social Hum
• Object-centered sociality
• Lowered barriers to participation
• User-generated Innovation

1 2

Community
Community
Article
Article
submission
submission
Creating ' broadcast'
Creating ' broadcast'
content (messageboards)
content (messageboards)
Short commenting (eBay
reviews; Friends Reunited)
Votes/polls and tagging
Reading web content, 'sending to a friend'
Reading web content
© BBC 2005
Current steps to participation Possible steps to participation

Geotagging
• Marker tag
• “geotagged”
• Two machine tags
• “geo:lat=54.5213”
• “geo:long=-113.1323”

upcoming:event=171852
namespace : predicate = value
clothing:size=\"large\"
blog:via=\"http://atomiq.org\"
dc:title=\"Tagging\"
geo:long=113.132

Read/Write Web
• Simple read/write system for web
applications:
• RSS feeds for every tag
• Tag any resource
• Your web application is a database!
• User-generated innovation

Exercise
• Discuss tagging patterns
• Your observations
• Questions

Antisocial Tagging
• Cold-start Problem
• Messy Metadata
• Vocal Minority
• Bad Actors

Puff Sean
= = = =
Diddy P. Diddy Puffy
Daddy Combs
Slim Marshall
= =
Eminem Shady Mathers
Preferred Alternate
Term Terms

parent
child child

Trends
• More structure
• Better visualizations
• Better algorithms
• Niche solutions

Thanks!
Available December 27
Pre-order now!
Book site: http://genesmith.ca

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