LIS 9763

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The beauty of Folksonomies, as written in this weeks reading by Ellysa Kroski, is that they reflect our culture in real time. They are inclusive of all cultures, everyone’s social and political biases. This is because Folksonomies are a communal effort. Everyone who places a tag on an item is involved. It puts power into the hands of the user.
Folksonomies are best represented by Flickr. David Weinberger provides an excellent example of this in his book Everything is Miscellaneous.  He describes an experience he had looking for images of Italy. Images of Italy appeared, but, so did a picture of a woman. Whether this women is in Italy or, is Italian, cannot be determined by simply looking at the image. The context is stripped away, and we are left with a general classification that does not make sense to anyone but the user who submitted the image. But, for someone who is thinking of taking a trip to Italy, and just wants to get an impression of the terrain, they will probably find what they are looking for by searching the tag Italy. There are over four million tags. The majority of them document rolling hills and bright blue oceans. The user can easily find what they are looking for, while the user who tagged the image of a women Italy, can use a personal tag that helps her locate that particular image. This versatility makes Folksonomies user friendly.  
Now, the issue with Folksonomies is that there is no synonym control. As Kuroki explains, Folksonomies neglect to demonstrate complex relationships between topics. The user searching Italy on Flickr would not find images of that are tagged Rome. Perhaps soon a smart Folksonomy will be developed, which will automatically link similar categories, heck, maybe there is one out there right now. Either way, I think Folksonomies are here to stay. Look out information; you're about to get tagged.