Since I’ve dived into del.icio.us in order to preserve and share my sprawling collection of recommended online reading and experiences, I’ve become deeply fascinated by tagging.
In a nutshell, tagging is the practice of people creating their own labels (tags) to classify content or information, and also sharing their tagged collections so that others can benefit from that descriptive effort. You make up your own system as you go along. Tagging is informal, self-organizing, creative, and surprisingly useful. It’s the hallmark of popular sites such as del.icio.us and Flickr. It creates intriguing context. If you haven’t tried it yet, you should.
When I have time, I’ll probably write my own primer, What is Tagging and Why Should You Care? In the meantime, here’s an excellent exploration of the deeper significance of tagging by David Weinberger: The Three Orders. It’s a bit long, but it’s well written.
Here’s an excerpt…