TaggingGene Smith

CanUX 2007 • Banff, Alberta

“When the hype wears down... I think tagging will have altered the information landscape in a fundamental way”

- Jon Udell

Tagging is...

• Simple, flexible, extensible

• Quick

• Social

• Collaborative

Information ArchitectureOrganizing info so others can find it

Social Software

Computer-mediated collaboration and

sharing

Personal Information Management

Organizing your information to get things done

TaggingSocial metadata

User Resource

Tags

Tagging System

“When the hype wears down... I think tagging will have altered the information landscape in a fundamental way”

- Jon Udell

vs.

Volume

Time

Volume

Time

?

Landscape

• Static ➔ Dynamic

• Low(er) Volume ➔ High(er) Volume

• Localized ➔ Ubiquitous and Immersive

• Centralized ➔ Distributed

• Authoritarian ➔ Social

“Believe it or not, we are all becoming librarians... “

“As the Internet provides users with the freedom to publish information, it quietly burdens them with the responsibility to organize that information”

- Peter Morville & Lou Rosenfeld

• Ease of Use

• Personal Information Management

• Collaboration and Sharing

• Fun

• Self Expression

Five Motivations

Exercise

• Tag vase with stickies

• Fold them in half

• Place them inside

• Tag vase with stickies

• Place them on the outside

Social Tagging

• Social Hum

• Object-centered sociality

• Lowered barriers to participation

• User-generated Innovation

1 2

Reading web content

Creating ' broadcast' content (messageboards)

Article submission

Community

Current steps to participation

Article submission

Community

Reading web content, 'sending to a friend'

Votes/polls and tagging

Short commenting (eBay reviews; Friends Reunited)

Creating ' broadcast' content (messageboards)

Possible steps to participation© BBC 2005

Geotagging

• Marker tag

• “geotagged”

• Two machine tags

• “geo:lat=54.5213”

• “geo:long=-113.1323”

upcoming:event=171852

namespace : predicate = value

clothing:size="large"blog:via="http://atomiq.org"dc:title="Tagging"geo:long=113.132

Read/Write Web

• Simple read/write system for web applications:

• RSS feeds for every tag

• Tag any resource

• Your web application is a database!

• User-generated innovation

• Discuss tagging patterns

• Your observations

• Questions

Exercise

Antisocial Tagging

• Cold-start Problem

• Messy Metadata

• Vocal Minority

• Bad Actors

Diddy = P. Diddy Puff Daddy Puffy Sean

Combs= = =

Eminem =Slim

ShadyMarshall Mathers=

Preferred Term

Alternate Terms

parent

child child

• More structure

• Better visualizations

• Better algorithms

• Niche solutions

Trends

Thanks!

Available December 27

Pre-order now!

Book site: http://genesmith.ca

Gene Smith

Principal, nForm User Experience

Email: gene.smith@nform.ca

Blog: http://atomiq.org

Twitter: http://twitter.com/gsmith

Slides: http://slideshare.net/gsmith