Presentation given by Peter Martin & Martin Belam at Online Information 2010 in London, showing how the Guardian applies tag metadata to content, derives value from that metadata, and has begun to map Guardian tags to the linked open data ecosphere.
Mapping the Guardian's tags to the web of data Peter Martin & Martin Belam Guardian News & Media November 2010
Our content model relies on tags... ...which are not anywhere near as boring as you think Keywords Contributor Series Publication Tone Article Video Audio Gallery Cartoon Tags Content Keywords
Every piece of content carries a selection of hand-picked tags
They are added during content production ...and the system suggests them as you type
...many of which are more useful than bullfighting+vuvuzelas This page is assembled automatically by combining the 'review' tone with the 'books' section
Tags are used to place editorial components Stories tagged with 'Apple' in the Technology section display recent tweets on the topic by Guardian contributors
And to customise commercial components Adverts that appear in the Guardian Jobs slot are tuned by the tags applied to article content
Topical navigation on the iPhone The Guardian iPhone app uses tags to provide lateral navigation into topics
Topical navigation on the iPhone The Guardian iPhone app uses tags to provide lateral navigation into topics
Trending on the iPhone The iPhone app also examines the tags with the most activity, to produce the 'trending' topic index
Tags help with search results We use links to tag pages as results for synonyms and near-synonyms commonly used by readers
Tags can go in folders ...and we can turn those folders into A-Z lists and navigation on the website
And our tags are on Twitter To our knowledge, they are the only bit of our information architecture to have an official presence on Twitter