Tag Whores

Do you often find yourself tagging resources, as well as tagging tags themselves and their relations?

Yes? Maybe you should consider becoming a ‘tag whore’. Don’t worry; it’s not as wayward as it sounds.

“if you find yourself posting a photo whose tags end up being a story in and of themselves, then this is the pool for you. short tags, long tags, nonsensical tags, brutally honest tags, tagged tags -- no matter. as long as they go just a wee bit beyond "blue" and "sunset" and "macro," you'll do just fine here...p.p.s. there are two other whore groups -- color whores and texture whores. feel free to come join the ranks. heh heh. (what have i done?!?)” (Flickr 2010).

Click here to go to the 'tag whore' group pool. 

Check out this example:

...and there's more that I couldn't capture! Extreme? I think so. 

Members of groups like these have been frequently termed by scholars as   ‘extreme taggers’. 

The real issue here is whether these ‘extreme taggers’ are detrimentally affecting social bookmarking folksonomies. One of the only articles that I have found that is freely available on the web can be found here. This article provides a handy formal description of extreme tagging and presents the necessity of regulatory processes. The composers, Tanasescu & Streibel (2007) also present a prototype implementation which is pretty in depth and confusing for somebody like me who isn’t very well acquainted with semantic analysis. However, for those who are interested, it may be useful to know in advance that “Semantic Associations are chains of relations between one tag to another, or in graph theoretic terms, a labelled path between two nodes” (Tanasescu & Streibel 2007). 

Based on the definition provided by Tanasescu & Streibel (2007), a screenshot of this page may be tagged with “computer”, “Web 2.0” and “folksonomy”. The tag “Web 2.0” itself may then be tagged (possibly by different users) with “internet” and “folksonomy”, and the tag “folksonomy” itself may be tagged with “tagging”. 

One of the benefits of this type of tagging is that a tag which has multiple meanings will be ‘solved’ in the sense that every single possibility of its interpretation is canvassed. The user can then decide to filer accordingly. 

As the name suggests ‘Tagopedia’ is an extreme tagging site, based on the top of Facebook platforms. Tag entries are based on URL’s. You can access more information on about 'Tagopedia"by clicking on the following link: 

http://russellbeattie.com/blog/1008277

References:

Tanasescu, V & Streibel O 2007, 'Extreme Tagging: Emergent Semantics through the Tagging of Tags', viewed 28 October 2010.

What should we be looking for in a social bookmarking site?

For the purposes of this blog and to satisfy my own interests I registered with and perused the 16 social bookmarking sites attached to my blog (see above). I realised that a quality social bookmarking site should contain the following:

• A substantial amount of users is required in order to avoid irrelevance.

•  Comprehensive FAQ / help pages.

•  A clear and understandable interface.

• Good import/export possibilities (import is required to transport bookmarks from one social bookmarking site to another, and vice-versa).

• A blog to inform of recent developments/changes/bug fixes etc.

If you don’t want to trawl through the endless number of social networking sites, here are my choices for the best 9 picks.

1.       Delicious

Owned by Yahoo, Delicious is probably my favourite social bookmarking site and from what I have gathered, the standard by which social bookmarking sites are measured. With its clear interface and simple step-by-step instructions it is possible to log in straight away (using your Yahoo account) and start tagging in a matter of minutes if not seconds! As soon as I joined I was overwhelmed by the sense of community and rich layers of content that are available. 

Yum.

2.        2. Digg

I seriously ‘digg’ this site.  

Despite recent criticisms Digg remains the most popular social news site online. No doubt part of its success has resulted from how easy it is for a newcomer to browse through popular articles from a wide range of topics. The way Digg works is that users can ‘digg’ articles that they agree with and ‘bury’ they ones that they disagree with.

The only downfall is that top users can effectively ‘sink’ an article that they don’t agree with. I was not surprised to find that many users have been concerned with this function. This month the Digg founder, Kevin Rose admitted that he let Digg stagnate by its move to pull engineers from designing new features to improving revenue.

With the imminent return of several popular features from its previous version, Digg seems set to make a real comeback and possibly ‘bury’ its competitors for good.

1.        3. Reddit

What’s red and dug all over?

If you don’t already know, the updated version of Digg had caused quite a fuss, and for good reason. Naturally, this has given way for a competitor to raise up the popularity ranks. This competitor is Reddit. The news page on Digg has been saturated with links to discussions and images posted on rival Reddit instead. Many have even speculated that Reddit is actually ‘gaming’ Digg. 

Reddit is a social news site that displays news based on the user’s personal preference and what the community likes. Apart from having to wait at least seven minutes before submitting the next URL, Reddit is an awesome site.  The best feature of Reddit is the individual recommendations. This way if you spend a considerable amount of time voting on stories or pictures etc that you think are either 'hot' or 'cold', your personal preferences will improve the things that are shown to you.


I agree with Daniel Nations comment that "[t]he community is focused more on offbeat news and commentary on current news than just posting the latest article off the AP wire". If you get your news from a conventional source and want a little bit more info/ different perspectives then this is your site!


4. Diigo

Digg...Diigo, any connection? Surprisingly no! They're not even competitors! 

Claiming to be a social annotation service, Diigo offers something unique to other social bookmarking sites. So lets just say your wandering around the web doing a bit of research and you find something that you want to bookmark. Instead of blindly bookmarking the page you can actually highlight sections of the text and bookmark it leaving the highlighted section in tact for when you return!You can also attach Sticky Notes next to your highlight, which allows you to record your comments. 

Correct me if I'm wrong,  but I can see this site really taking up amongst university students, educators and the like. As Diigo allows educators etc to establish a private group and a hold private conversations around bookmarks it is particularly useful in a context where knowledge development, rather than management is expected. 







5. StumbleUpon
Stumble? More like Stride!

StumbleUpon offers its members a matchless way to navigate around the web. If your one of those people who likes to Google themselves just to see what comes up, or is addicted to the 'lucky' Google search option, you will love this social bookmarking site. Also, if your sick of searching for items in one of the common search engines such as Google and Bing and finding irrelevant, sponsored and outdated material, you should definitely check StumbleUpon out. After joining, and entering a term in the search bar I was astonished with the standard of results. Many of the terms that I entered such as 'Digital Culture', returned results to me that I am quite convinced I wouldn't have been able to find elsewhere. The beauty of StumbleUpon is that you are able to take advantage of your fellow-users research. In addition, you are also able to contribute more tags to the item and/or give it a thumbs up. 

If your looking for a better web search tool, look no further than StumbleUpon. 

This video pretty much covers what I have said and looks at StumbleUpon on the iPhone:



6. Newsvine 

Oh I heard it through the Newsvine...oh I'm just about to loose my mind...tagger, tagger, yeah!

I have no idea why I haven't used this site before! Quick, spread the word! Launched recently in March 2006 this site really does "bring together big and little media in a way which respects established journalism and empowers the individual". Link. The thing that I love about this site is that it allows absolutely anybody to contribute and places editorial integrity back into the hands of the community. 

The site is extremely attractive and well thought out.  

 7. Mixx

Mixx is an extremely popular site reporting visitors in the millions. No doubt a large proportion of these visitors have been as a result of Mixx’s integrationin websites such as USA today, New York Times and CNN. The content on Mixx is just as the name suggests a mix of stories, photos and videos amongst other things contributed by community members of Mixx. 

Just to ‘mixx’ it up a little bit more, this site allows the user to be in charge of the content of their page but also of the layout of their page.  You can either tell the site how you like it and they will accommodate your needs or you can go that extra step and create a personalised mixture of web content (e.g. images/videos/text-based articles/free-determined Meta tags). Private groups can also be formed amongst users that wish to share additional information regarding their common interests.

8. Flickr 

Unlike the other social bookmarking sites that I have discussed so far, Flickr is purely for managing images rather than links etc. Before joining up I had somehow managed to navigate my way there several times when searching for photos relating to a specific item. The best thing about Flickr is that anybody can access to photos that are made publicly available, which is most of them. One quick search in the easily identifiable search bar will return results that smash Google images out of the water.                                                                                   

There are two options for membership –the free account and the pro account. Both of these accounts allow members to upload images in a variety of ways to make photosets which are online photo albums. These can be browsed or viewed as a slideshow from anywhere around the world. I really enjoy being a part of a group formed by my digital culture peers. It’s interesting and refreshing to see that most contributors have very strong emotional drivers for sharing images. 

9. Clipmarks

I found that Clipmarks is extremely similar to Diigo. As a personal Web scrapbook, Clipmarks allows you to “see clips of text, images or video about all sorts of topics that people find while surfing the web” as well as create your own. 

The main benefit of Clipmarks is that it still has a relatively small following of users and as a result is quite an intimate experience. Sure, you won’t be able to find the breadth of sources-but is that necessarily a bad thing? I don’t think so. There are so many sites out there already that are all about finding things that you otherwise wouldn’t have, so it’s energizing to see a site that is more about sharing things as part of a community. 

On your marks, get set, clip!

Taxonomy vs. Folksonomy

Folksonomy advantages:

My experience with tagging on Flickr and Delicious has so far allowed me to appreciate that the benefits of 'folksonomy' far outweigh those of 'taxonomy'. 

When I began tagging, I  often found myself wondering whether I should be trying to place the item in the correct category. I had to continually remind myself that a tag can be anything I want it to be. From my experience with taxonomies I can recall that they are often frustrating because not all items fit comfortably within a defined category. I can imagine that this lack of fit could happen if the concept is so new that no terms describing the topic have been added to the taxonomy yet. Due to the flexible and immediate nature of folksonomies, people are able to gain greater access to more current digital technology such as 'folksonomies'

Adaptability – new terms can quickly evolve and be applied to new concepts.

Lower cost – There are no financial pressures on creators and authors as the workload is distributed amongst a large number of people. 

Flexible – There are no rigid constructs.

Takes into account multiple perspectives – If you and I describe the same thing differently, both of our interpretations will be taken into consideration.

Folksonomy disadvantages:  

Despite the obvious benefits, it is important to be aware of some common problems.  

Over tagging – If people become obsessive taggers and place too many tags on content, the search method may become inefficient- recall would be high but precision would be low. 

Inconsistency – People’s misspellings, different choices of punctuation and variations in spelling will all still be displayed as different tags. Individual tags lack precision and there is no ability to control synonyms or related terms. In addition, many social software tools take different approaches to tags composed of multiple words resulting in even more variations.

Skewed perspective – Research shows that there is a dense group within every online community that contributes the majority of tags. Also, everyone has different perceptions about what they are reading. 

Lack of control – With social tagging, users can inappropriately tag content e.g. users can tag company content with negative terms.  

For those of you who need to design an information system- it is worthwhile taking a look at these articles:

• When taxonomy fails
• Why taxonomy fails  

With regards to the corporate environment, there is much potential for a hybrid of these two systems. Stephanie Lemieux of Early and Associates suggests that "user tagging can help refine corporate taxonomy". Arguably the clever manipulation of both systems will alleviate the majority of disadvantages between them. 

I really like this quote by information architect Jay Feinberg- 

"I think comparing taxonomies with folksonomies is a bit like comparing access to apples at grocery stores with access to apples at picnics...[o]ne can make apple to apple comparisons, but the contexts, in both cases, are very elaborate (both as infrastructures, and as processes). There are plenty of information system universes where both grocery stores and picnics can coexist".

 If your interested, a more comprehensive analysis of the possibilities of a hybrid system can be found on Toby Ward's blog.