Tagging on Flickr has grown exponentially over time as more users have adopted the practice of adding tags to their photos on the site. Early tags tended to be simple labels like "birthday" or "vacation" but tags have become increasingly sophisticated as users describe concepts and annotate relationships between people, places, and events. The growing use and complexity of tags on Flickr now presents the greatest challenge of scaling the system to effectively support exploration of the vast tag space and increasing surface area for search and discovery.

1. Kakul Srivastava flickr.com/photos/kakul

2. tagging

3. tagging opportunities & challenges of scale

4. definitions

5. tag Pronunciation: \’tag\ Function: noun Etymology: Middle English tagge; akin to Middle Low German tagge, tacke Date: 14th century Definitions: 1 : a loose hanging piece of cloth : tatter 2 : a metal or plastic binding on an end of a shoelace 3 : a piece of hanging or attached material; specifically : a loop, knot, or tassel on a garment 4 a : a brief quotation used for rhetorical emphasis or sententious effect b : a recurrent or characteristic verbal expression c : tagline 5 a : a cardboard, plastic, or metal marker used for identification or classification <license tags > 6 : a detached fragmentary piece : bit 7 : a graffito in the form of an identifying name or symbol http://www.flickr.com/photos/grodscorp/1420961279/

6. more specifically, tagging is… unstructured by (l2r): carf, steelmonkey, anarchosyn, 0olong, Daniel Williams

7. social

8. organic

9. scale

10. http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1113/534748833_f51c84dc71_b.jpg by: Rupert Taylor-Price • http://www.flickr.com/photos/rupertuk/534748833 equal to 100 heights of mt. everest

11. extend beyond the yellow river by: J. F. Kr • http://www.flickr.com/photos/jwang7/486474760/

12. cover the floor of 14 Super Wal-Marts by: ratterrell • http://www.flickr.com/photos/ratterrell/4481631/

13. tags on flickr, trajectory break for a personal story

14. tags on flickr, trajectory

15. tags on flickr, trajectory

16. behaviors

17. growth is exponential

18. increasing sophistication of use “ I exist” concepts: “ birthday” “ party” “ vacation” 12 42 14 50

19. increasing sophistication of use me and the other – “here I am!!” making my stuff “findable” numbers explode many more “concepts” to define & to search for

20. increasing sophistication of use “ Hi! Can we play?” my friends annotate formalized interactions the commons

21. the commons

23. Monday 09:25

24. Monday 09:30

25. Monday 09:37

26. Monday 09:46

27. Monday 10:00

28. Monday 10:10

29. Monday 10:18

30. Monday 10:36

31. Monday 10:36 1 HOUR

32. Monday 10:36 1 HOUR 150 TAGS

33. Monday 10:36

34. Monday 10:45

35. Monday 10:56

36. Monday 11:16

37. Monday 11:47

38. Monday 12:00

39. Monday 12:20

40. Monday 12:20 3 HOURS

41. Monday 12:20 3 HOURS 767 TAGS

42. Monday 12:20

43. Monday 12:55

44. Monday 13:14

45. Monday 14:26

46. Monday 15:40

47. Wednesday 17:03

48. Thursday 10:49

49. Thursday 10:49 24 HOURS

50. Thursday 10:49 24 HOURS 11,000 TAGS

51. magic

52. sly, russian, mathematical magic

53. clustering Inferred “tags”

54. hot tags Inferred “tags”

55. places Inferred “tags”

56. inferred geo locations “ hot tag” + location tag (i.e. “capital” + “washington d.c.”) places

57. watch this space

58. sub tags people tags regions (think video) more metadata by: .schill, beckyb

59. Explore / Tags / aero:model=a319 more metadata: machinetags by: .schill, beckyb 4 aero:type 1586 aero:tail 94 aero:special 1808 aero:series 2 aero:port 2404 aero:model 1574 aero:man 3143 aero:airport 2342 aero:airline 1 aero:airlene 2 aero:aiport 9 aero:ICAO Photos Namespace:Predicate

60. more metadata: machinetags

61. “ suggest” tags “ correct” tags “ play” tags more interaction

62. is this interesting? is this related? (places, events) is this a story? is it news? more “network” magic by (l2r): antitezo, sheng-fa lin 林勝發 , pingnews.com, TrevorLowe

63. increasing surface area tag cloud greatest challenge

64. increasing surface area search greatest challenge

65. increasing surface area explore/places/calendar greatest challenge