LIS 9763

There’s something to be said for information placement on the web: like a library after a hurricane, much of what you want could be in one pile, but further resources you need on the same subject could easily be mixed in with three or four others. This isn’t to say that it’s impossible to find information on the web: that’s why those clever people at yahoo and google created their search engines, not to mention directories, link lists and other tools. However, I shudder at the task of sitting down, file by file, and attempt to classify each and every bit of media with a traditional taxonomy, such as the LCSH, or fit each with a dewey decimal number. In a physical library these tools are effective, but in a space where not only is new information being added every second, but without any consensus on what system to use or who, if anyone, should be controlling how information is classified, traditional models aren’t going to cut it.

Enter social tagging: why bother do all the work, when we can get our users to organize it all for us? Social tagging eliminates the guesswork:  authors tag and organize information in ways that are meaningful to them, as soon as the content is published. As Porter mentions, and Hollenback reaffirms, users like delicious and other tagging software because it provides organization and direction for them. Sadly I never got nutr.itio.us. working to see what the deal is there, although I’ve experienced the “two words for one thing” problem Hollenback recommends using nutr.itio.us to deal with, in my case picking between British and U.S spellings, such as humour and humor. One of these days I’ll pick a spelling system and get that sorted out…

Despite Porter's assertions that users tag for themselves first, the benifit for others cannot be underestimated. What I really love about social tagging is the variety and substance of findings when flipping through tags. Although due to the top demographic, most of the links showing up as “popular” on Delicious’s homepage relate to technology and web design, I’ve seen more than a few gems of interest, such as a recipe for cupcakes using Irish whisky, and how to make the best cup of coffee. These are items I might not think to search for, or even if I did perform a search on, might not immediately pop up, yet delicious delivered them right to my lap. Likewise, when performing a search, say for  Sherlock Holms, I get a different set of results using delicious than google. This isn’t necessarily a better set of results, but it is different, giving me more options and more possibilities to look at. This sort of thinking seems to have given rise to the search engine Worio, a new tool that provides traditional search-engine finding, augmented with a “you may also like” social tagging side that suggests other topics & sites.

I’m still out on debate regarding best practices, as I look at the case studies there are a few implementation strategies I prefer. I like the use of the tag cloud: it’s attractive, and provides a basic, attractive way to introduce users to their social tags. Pentags use of a tag cloud to introduce links is good, Seldovia’s tag cloud on the side of the blog is better.