Tag Teams Wrestle With Web Content

Computerworld - Desktop search tools have done wonders in allowing me to gain control over information once it's on my desktop, but that begs the question: Does all of that stuff need to be there in the first place? If the source of the information is the Web, the answer may be no. A better way for information workers to accumulate and organize information is to leave it where they found it and provide a pointer or bookmark to that content.

Unfortunately, browser-based bookmarks can quickly become unwieldly to manage.

That's where social bookmarking Web sites such as Del.icio.us come in. These popular services combine one-click bookmarking of Web pages with an ad hoc tagging system. Users create their own keywords and short descriptions and associate them with each bookmark. They can then view their own Web site links, sort them by keyword and view the links of other participants who used those same terms.

These aggregations of Web content, created by like-minded individuals, can provide quick access to related information in the correct context -- something that's more difficult for search engines to achieve. And because the bookmarks are on the Web rather than within a single instance of a browser, they can be accessed from any computer with an Internet connection.

The phenomenon of shared tagging of Web pages and other types of online content is spreading at a quickening pace. Del.icio.us, which launched in late 2003, was the first social bookmarking Web site. Today, users can choose from a variety of free services. These include Flickr, which lets users upload, tag and share photos online; Technorati, which lets users tag and track blog content; and Spid.ero.us, which summarizes tagging activities across multiple social bookmarking sites.

Enthusiasts see social bookmarking as a way to index the Web, but it could also become a powerful tool for enhancing the productivity of distinct groups, or communities, within an organization.

Today, the taxonomies that organizations create for categorizing content don't necessarily match the needs of every individual or group, aren't always well followed and must continually be kept up to date. They may provide the structure an organization needs for regulatory compliance purposes, but they don't always pass the "what's in it for me" test.

The process of adding tags that you don't buy into becomes a chore -- one that many users dispense with quickly by choosing a default or the first keyword in a list that even remotely relates to the content.

While tools that automate the categorization process relieve users of the task of selecting tags from canned category lists, the keywords still aren't personalized; they're part of someone else's taxonomy. And if the user can't categorize content in a way that's consistent with the way he thinks about his job, he is unlikely to take full advantage of it to help him do that job better.