Tagging

Definition

In the context of Web 2.0, Tagging means sticking keywords to something (a resource link, a web page, a picture, ...)

So called folksonomies are collections of tags.

Tagging is used in many social software applications.

E.g.

to manage one's own digital artifacts and links
to allow people to share links (social bookmarking) and artifacts.
to link people with same interests
to calulate recommendations for a product (e.g. like Amazon does with keywords describing books)

Firstly, it's easy for users. In contrast, filling in metadata forms is time-consuming, boring and difficult.

Second, metadata are ridid and don't work in the real world. An object is not always either of type 1 or type 2, but can be both or in between.

Metrics and visualization techniques can put some "order" into a big "tag soup" (e.g. see tag clouds.

some people hate metadata (DSchneider does because it's too much work)
some people hate tagging (DSchneider does because within large crowds some people may unintentionnally or intentionnally use wrong tags, and because it'is also some work.

A cognitive analysis of tagging, (or how the lower cognitive cost of tagging makes it popular)

Vuorikari, Riina (2005), Social networking software and e-portfolios foster digitallearning networks, Special Insight Reports, European Schoolnet. HTML

Vuorikari, Riina (2005), Innovation Brief: Can personal digital knowledge artefact's managment and social networks enhance learning ? PDF