1. What is Tag
1.1. Definition
A tag is a relevant keyword associated with a piece of information, thus describing the item and enabling keyword-based classification of information.
The piece of information can be files, web pages, images, bookmarks, or blog entries.
Typically, one item contains multiple tags.
Usually a tag contains a link to display all items associated with that tag.
1.2. Tagcloud
A tag cloud is a visual depiction of a collection of tags used on a collections of items. Often, more frequently used tags are more emphasized.
Display order of tag cloud can either be alphabetical, or sorted by popularity, or random.
A tag is frequently found on websites, but there is one good example of printed media that employs tag cloud: The Van Couversun, Wednesday January 3, 2007
1.3. Tag Folksonomy
A folksonomy describes a content that employs tags. Examples of folksonomy may include: del.icio.us, Flickr, MySpace, youtube…
Alternatively, folksonomy also describes a community using a service and navigating through information by following tags and giving tags to own data to help people find them.
Some services (Xanga, Wordpress) provide site-wide tag list while others (Blogger, Yahoo! 360) only give tag list of one owner.
Folksonomy is coined by 2 words ‘folks’ and ‘taxonomy’. ‘Taxonomy’ is from the Greek ‘taxis’ and ‘nomos’ which respectively mean ‘classify’ and ‘manage’. Folksonomy can be interpreted as ‘community classification management’.
2. What are Tags used for?
2.1. Searching
Tagging allows searching. Internet users can follow the link from a tag to retrieve all information associated to that tag.
2.2. Tag vs. Category
Categories allow classification. Tags also allow classification. How are they different?
For example, you write an article about:
“web design for web 2.0, exploiting glossy design style, with images created by Adobe Photoshop”
that article can be put under 2 categories: ‘Design’, ‘Photoshop’. Because these may be the mainstream of your website. The article can be assigned with tags like: ‘web-2.0′, ‘glossy’, ‘images’, ‘Adobe’, ‘web’, ‘web-design’, ‘Design’, ‘Photoshop’
- Categories are more structurized and static | Tags are more liberal and continually added
- Categories can have unique names | Tags need to be popular and used by many
- Categories can have long names | Tags should have less than 3 words
- Posts are usually in one to four categories | A single post can list many more tags (one Flickr photo is allow to contain 70 tags)
- Categories are not tags | Tags can be used to replace categories
- Categories define the mainstream of the website | Tags define the information in each item
- Categories help visitors to get an idea what the website is about | Tags help visitors to find different items
2.3. Drawback
Inconsistency among authors
- Different people may use different terms to identify one object.
Example: some use ‘football’ and some use ’soccer’ to refer to one kind of sport. ‘lumber’ and ‘timber’ is another example - Plural and singular
Example: ‘dog’ and ‘dogs’ are two different tags - Polysemy - words which have many meanings
Example: ‘table’ can be a thing in the dining room or on the computer screen - Synonyms
Example: television and TV
Inconsistency among items of one author
- One person, at different times may give different tags to one object. For example, Bob wrote about a TV show and tagged it ‘television’. The day after, he wrote about another one and tagged it ‘tv’. Yet another day, he tagged his next post ‘TV show’.
- Unpredictability: when one adds a new tag, she may discover that many previous posts may also be associated with that tag. Editing back can be a pain.
3. Giving smart Tags
3.1. Giving smart tags can do 3 things
- Boost visitors’ navigation: with commonly found tags, visitors save time to find the information they expect
- Push your wiki(search_engine) pagerank: when your tags match what internet users type in their wiki(search_engine), the possibility that your page appears on top results is higher
- Save time for regressive tag addition: when you predict a collection of tags you’re going to use, it will save time for you to add tags to previously posted entries
3.2. How to give smart tags
…or more accurately, find smart tags to give
- Compare the tags you’re planning to use to see which is more popular. This can be done by searching each keyword with Google to record the number of results returned. More efficiently, there are utilities that enable this: Go Rank
- Study how people tag by visiting popular tagging folksonomy
4. The ‘other’ Tags
Tag cloud inspiration
Ideas are expressed based on the presentation of a tag cloud depiction
Mind Map
Fun Web 2.0 Logo Cloud
The outdoor tag game
Tag is a playground game that usually involves two or more players attempting to “tag” other players by touching them with their hands. It may be made more complex with various rule modifications.
The self-writing tag game
Anyone who is tagged by a friend is to write a number of truths about her/himself, then continue to tag other friends.
The secret tag game
Anyone who is tagged needs to tag three other friends before s/he can read the “secret message” left by the tagger.
Reference
Tags of this article: 360,blog,blogger,bookmark,category,classification,collection,consistency,del.icio.us,design,flickr,glossy,How is the weather?,How IT world operates,How to better Wordpress writing,How to better Wordpress writing,information,information-management,keyword,logo,myspace,navigation,network,outdoor,popular,predictability,random,search,seo,tag,unique,utility,web-2.0,website,xanga,yahoo!,youtube.
Last update July 6, 2007
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