Actually, I'm a big fan of folksonomies and tagging. Even though all the tags on Flickr are user-created, it still works almost as elegantly as if it were being cataloged by a professional.
Still, it's interesting to see how people manipulate tags, as it clearly can be abused. Some people use misleading but popular tags to sneak in images that otherwise would remain buried (usually promotional and/or shocking images). Flickr seems to have a system to counter-act this kind of thing, though.
Others use arbitrary tags to form their own community within Flickr. For example, the author of a webcomic I read started promoting the use of the tag haylookit for anything his readers found interesting or noteworthy. Now there are over a thousand images tagged with haylookit on Flickr.
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Have you read about hashtags in Twitter? Hashtags in tweets let you search for all tweets on a given topic. Getting popular.
ReplyDeleteOk, now I'm kind of worried about you and Chris. What the heck are hashtags? And they're in tweets? Should I be checking my cereal box every morning? Should I be checking in my M & M bag? Maybe if I just reach in and don't look........
ReplyDeleteI love bloggers search box - searches tags and text. Did you notice it right up at the top of the screen?
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