1. Tagging
Gene Smith
CanUX 2007 • Banff, Alberta

2. “When the hype wears down... I think
tagging will have altered the information
landscape in a fundamental way”
- Jon Udell

5. Tagging is...
• Simple, flexible, extensible
• Quick
• Social
• Collaborative

6. Social
Information
Software
Architecture
Computer-mediated
Organizing info so
collaboration and
others can find it
sharing
Tagging
Social metadata
Personal Information
Management
Organizing your information to get
things done

7. User Resource
Tags
Tagging System

8. “When the hype wears down... I think
tagging will have altered the information
landscape in a fundamental way”
- Jon Udell

13. vs.

16. Volume
Time

18. Volume
Time
?

20. Landscape
• Static ➔ Dynamic
• Low(er) Volume ➔ High(er) Volume
• Localized ➔ Ubiquitous and Immersive
• Centralized ➔ Distributed
• Authoritarian ➔ Social

21. “Believe it or not, we are all becoming
librarians... “
“As the Internet provides users with the
freedom to publish information, it quietly
burdens them with the responsibility to
organize that information”
- Peter Morville & Lou Rosenfeld

22. Five Motivations
• Ease of Use
• Personal Information Management
• Collaboration and Sharing
• Fun
• Self Expression

27. Exercise
• Tag vase with
• Tag vase with
stickies stickies
• Fold them in half
• Place them on the
outside
• Place them inside

28. Social Tagging
• Social Hum
• Object-centered sociality
• Lowered barriers to participation
• User-generated Innovation

30. 1 2

31. Community
Community
Article
Article
submission
submission
Creating ' broadcast'
Creating ' broadcast'
content (messageboards)
content (messageboards)
Short commenting (eBay
reviews; Friends Reunited)
Votes/polls and tagging
Reading web content, 'sending to a friend'
Reading web content
© BBC 2005
Current steps to participation Possible steps to participation

33. Geotagging
• Marker tag
• “geotagged”
• Two machine tags
• “geo:lat=54.5213”
• “geo:long=-113.1323”

35. upcoming:event=171852
namespace : predicate = value
clothing:size=quot;largequot;
blog:via=quot;http://atomiq.orgquot;
dc:title=quot;Taggingquot;
geo:long=113.132

36. Read/Write Web
• Simple read/write system for web
applications:
• RSS feeds for every tag
• Tag any resource
• Your web application is a database!
• User-generated innovation

37. Exercise
• Discuss tagging patterns
• Your observations
• Questions

38. Antisocial Tagging
• Cold-start Problem
• Messy Metadata
• Vocal Minority
• Bad Actors

39. Puff Sean
= = = =
Diddy P. Diddy Puffy
Daddy Combs
Slim Marshall
= =
Eminem Shady Mathers
Preferred Alternate
Term Terms

40. parent
child child

45. Trends
• More structure
• Better visualizations
• Better algorithms
• Niche solutions

46. Thanks!
Available December 27
Pre-order now!
Book site: http://genesmith.ca

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