Social Networking, Tagging, Classifying etc...

Once again my Information Architecture class is afoot at working on a wiki to help define the term "folksonomies." The whole notion of "social tagging" has been loosely discussed for the past four or five years on the Internet, and we are just trying to get our proverbial arms around this subject matter in a way that makes sense to help further define it.

Wiki's definition of folksonomy has its tell-tale make sure you include the kitchen sink coverage of the definition, which leaves you wondering what you read after you've read it. And through my research I have found some noteworthy experts who have attempted to define the terminologies supporting the whole "social tagging phenomenon." (Adam Mathes, Peter Morville, David Weinberger).

David Weinberger (noted above) has even tried to write a book (Everything is Miscellaneous) that further defines this new digital order.

The Amazon review of "Everything Miscellaneous" states:

"In Everything Is Miscellaneous, David Weinberger charts the new principles of digital order that are remaking business, education, politics, science, and culture. In his rollicking tour of the rise of the miscellaneous, he examines why the Dewey decimal system is stretched to the breaking point, how Rand McNally decides what information not to include in a physical map (and why Google Earth is winning that battle), how Staples stores emulate online shopping to increase sales, why your children’s teachers will stop having them memorize facts, and how the shift to digital music stands as the model for the future in virtually every industry. Finally, he shows how by 'going miscellaneous,' anyone can reap rewards from the deluge of information in modern work and life."

Further along in my research I found that Drupal's "free tagging" coding discussion might send you back to your bed to take a nap if you don't want to get into a polymorphic discussion of coding and folksonomies.

Danah Boyd (an editor at Corante) shows true information architectural nerdism when she says, "I love the conversations that have emerged recently about folksonomy / ethnoclassification /tagging /onotology. . ." and "Classification schemes are always culturally dependent (upon) ... how people organize information."

OK. I am with her on that, but I shudder to think about who is doing this classifying? What baggage are they bringing with them to the card sorting table? I don't know why I think about that when thinking about folksonomies . . . but . . .Weinberger states in EIM, "The whole notion of tagged infoirmation has many still wondering if we are headed for a mess."

. . . I guess one of the guys who I respect the most as far as technological advance is concerned is Steve Jobs. He previously said what I feel in an article in Business Week, "It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them." (--- May 25 1998) He also said (in a Wired Magazine article) that users want to find information not organize it, or something like that. (Sorry for the paraphrase).

What I am saying is that people are really limited by their own cultural experience, and I have to ask: Should we be dependent upon that limitation to help us organize metadata? Websites like del.icio.us and flickr truly seem to flaunt the notion that people do want to organize information with an amazingly robust target audience using their services.

I think with the notion of social categorization (See also Rawbrick article) comes an open-ended realization that as this phemomenon continues, so will the way we define it.  Maybe Weinberger ends this discussion with true pearls of wisdom: "Reality is multifaceted. There are lots of ways to slice it. How we choose to slice it up depends upon why we’re slicing it up."