folksonomy: Tag, you're it!

As you may already know I am an arts/law student currently undertaking a Digital Culture course at Newcastle University. This course has exposed me to an array of online communication technologies that I had either previously been unaware of or had never used/understood before. Considering the extent to which these technologies enabled by Web 2.0 have enhanced social interaction and content management in everyday life, I believe that it should be our imperative to seek a greater understanding and appreciation of these sites.

Users often annotate the content that they have created and used with descriptive labels known as ‘tags’. It is thought that the simplicity of the tagging process whereby users need only select or upload content to a centralized database and assign words to this material has given rise to its popularity (Tisselli 2010, p.141). These tags, although created by individuals, aggregate to produce a common vocabulary known as folksonomy. A fundamental problem that has been identified by Strohmaier (2008) is that the terms used during tagging have been found to be different from the terms that are used when searching for resources. This problem is arguably limiting the success of folksonomies.

Whilst navigating my way around various social bookmarking sites I found myself becoming increasingly interested in the reasons why people tag their own and other people’s content. As such, I will also be discussing the various motivations behind why users ‘tag’ content and whether the type and purpose of the virtual community plays a role in determining these motivations (Moore & Serva 2007, p.153).

If you have a spare moment I would love to know why you ‘tag’ items and whether you feel a sense of connection to the site that you contribute to. Also, do you contribute to multiple sites and if so, do you feel the same sense of community within each site?

I have to admit that the only reason why I started tagging was because it was a requirement for my course. However, ever since I have joined up to social bookmarking sites such as Flickr and Delicious I have felt part of that specific community and have wanted to contribute tags to help others navigate their way around the site. The sense of community that I feel with Flickr has been enhanced by my inclusion in a specific group ‘CULT3020’.

If you don't know what I'm talking about please watch the the video that I have attached below and feel free to ask me any questions! I would also strongly advise that you join up to a social bookmarking site such as Delicious, upload an image and start tagging away!

I hope that together we can challenge the ways that social bookmarking is being used in order to enhance its efficiency for all web users. Please feel free to send any criticisms my way as well!