New Media Mania

Knowledge managers who would jump on the tagging bandwagon need to understand that there must be something in it for the user. People won’t tag something for the sake of it, or as a favour to the publisher.

In the case of Del.icio.us, people value the go-anywhere bookmarking functionality first and foremost. And being able to share their finds with their friends and colleagues is a secondary benefit that browser-based bookmarking doesn’t easily allow.

Another reason why people use tags is to attract others to their own content. For example, a user assigns tags to an article or blog on Technorati or a photo album on Flickr in the hope that someone else will find it among the masses of other user-generated content.

In this case, tagging is used to promote or categorise one’s own content, rather than promote or recall content created by others. Indeed this is the reason I have started to use Del.icio.us again. I have tagged my own blog posts to make them findable by Del.icio.us users.

Continue reading ‘How Can Your Audience Benefit from Tagging?’ »

To suggest that social classification systems will replace formal traditional classification on the web is to imply that there is no place on the web for bodies of professional, scientific, or other specialised knowledge that possess standardised nomenclature critical for mutual understanding.

Conversely, those who would argue that social tagging has no place in highly specialised fields are being short-sighted. Clearly there is a place for both traditional and social classification systems, and indeed hybrids, on the web.

Shirky proposes conditions in which formal classification systems work well and are necessary.

Continue reading ‘Social Vs Traditional Classification: It Can Be Both’ »