Here's one of those words that's made out of a couple of other words. Take taxonomy (a system of categorizing data) and let the users (the people, the folk) do it for you, and you get a new way of categorizing web data called folksonomies. These systems allow users to "tag" items with keywords as categories and hence provide categorizations that you, as the information architect, might not have used. It also allows systems with lots of data to be cataloged on the fly, so to speak.

To see this in action go to del.icio.us, a web link sharing site. If a user posts a link, she and other users can "tag" the link with keywords that are relevant to allow other users to find the link easily. The photo sharing website Flickr.com is doing the same for photos.

Continuing our thread of web users as "prosumers" (hey there's another one of those new words - producers and consumers), tagging not only allows your user base to better classify your data to the way they use it, but also helps by giving you valuable insights into the way users see your product or service. Power to the people (and their tags)!


Dutch@TheWorxGroup.com