Tagalicious
Ever since getting into del.icio.us and gmail (and now spurl.net), I’ve been pretty much sold on the utility of the tagging metaphor as opposed to the folder metaphor. If that doesn’t make sense to you, here’s my layman’s description of the difference:
Folder metaphor
You have item ‘A’ and it needs to be organized somewhere. Should it go in folder ‘Project A’ or should it go in folder ‘Group A’? You have to choose one, then remember it. This is what we’ve all grown used to with our computers. Between tags and robust search tools, it’s going away.
Tag metaphor
You have item ‘A’ and it needs to be organized somewhere. You can tag it with ‘Project A’ and with ‘Group A’. Now when you go looking for it in ‘Project A’ on Tuesday, it’ll be there. And when you need it again on Thursday, but can only remember to look in ‘Group A’, it’ll be there too. Nice.
Pretty much all blog software allows you to organize your posts into various ‘categories.’ Categories are basically tags, since a single post can belong in several categories.
As far as I can tell (and I’m no expert) the tag metaphor is pretty much the same idea as faceted classification in library science, but dumbed down for us commoners.
Okay, enough with the background. I really just wanted to point out that Technorati has just added a tag search to their already fine services (via Many 2 Many). Be sure to check out the zeitgeist. Neato.
Related Stories
POSTED IN: web/tech
3 opinions for Tagalicious
Hayssam
Jan 14, 2005 at 3:17 am
What if you had a system-wide shortcut allowing you to put a tag word in any app ? I.e, you are writing a draft email related to project A, about incoming sales. At the top of your draft, you just add these two keywords: XXProjectA; XXIncomingSales.
Aftewards, will all the desktop search engines in place (and with the smart folder feature), you’ll be able to immediatly find all items related to Project A with the simplistic search XXProjectA. That’s simple tagging for every editable and indexable piece of information on you desktop.
Would you find it useful ?
Bren
Jan 14, 2005 at 9:29 pm
I know I’d find it useful for sure. With a system-wide tagging option, I could sort various items into multiple groups. I might have an email that addresses an action that affects two different projects, and I could tag the email with both.
I like the idea…
Talking Story with Say Leadership Coaching
Jan 16, 2005 at 8:13 am
Time to read blogs, anyone?
After I wrote my How This Coach Reads a Blog post I got into a conversation with a new Bloglines user, who challenged me, “No way Rosa, unless you are on a computer 24/7 there is no possible way you