28% of Americans Tag Content Online
|
Written By Kate Zimmermann | January 31, 2007 | Share This
|
|
The Pew Internet & American Life Project has released a new study claiming that 28% of online Americans have used the internet to tag content. Says the Pew,
“Forget Dewey and His Decimals, Internet users are revolutionizing the way we classify information”
They include an interview with David Weinberger, whose already acclaimed book Everything is Miscellaneous (not due out until May 2007) describes how information systems are instigating a radical move away from hierarchical classifications of information. When asked about the future of tagging, Weinberger replied,
“Because it’s useful when there’s lots of information and the information is truly meaningful to individuals, it’ll be adopted more and more widely. But we’re also going to invent
new ways to harvest tagging. Flickr, for example, is already able to cluster photographs by subject with impressive accuracy just by analyzing their tags, so that photos of Gerald Ford are separated from photos of Ford Motor cars. We’ll also undoubtedly figure out how to intersect tags with social networks, so that the tags created by people we know and respect have more “weight” when we search for tagged items. In fact, by analyzing how various social groups use tags, we can do better at understanding how seemingly different worldviews map to one another.”
It’s interesting that he believe tags should have a certain weight attached, determined by profile status. I’d argue that relevancy not determined by knowing someone personally, but rather, by the similarities between their profile and yours.
Discussion:
- Affiliate Networks Should Allow Tagging (Cost Per News)
- Tagging and the Culture of Participation (Screenwerk)
- 28% of Net Users Tag (Joho the Blog)
Topics: Web Analytics |