Playing with Facebook lately has made me rethink the concept of tagging. Initially I saw it as a kind of distributed classification activity. I tag things on delicious or Flickr out of enlightened self interest. By classifying a photo or an article I make it easier for myself to find it later. The fact that it also makes that piece of content more searchable for everyone else is great, but not really a motivating factor. I have better things to do than be a human search engine. But tagging on Facebook is a bit different. When I add tag my friends on a Facebook photo or video, I'm actually saying 'come and look'. Its not classification but form of attention grabbing. Its a social ping - the personal variant of Technorati buzz. And more proof, if anything, that the essence of the next generation web is pure vanity.
Playing with Facebook lately has made me rethink the concept of tagging. Initially I saw it as a kind of distributed classification activity. I tag things on delicious or Flickr out of enlightened self interest. By classifying a photo or an article I make it easier for myself to find it later. The fact that it also makes that piece of content more searchable for everyone else is great, but not really a motivating factor. I have better things to do than be a human search engine. But tagging on Facebook is a bit different. When I add tag my friends on a Facebook photo or video, I'm actually saying 'come and look'. Its not classification but form of attention grabbing. Its a social ping - the personal variant of Technorati buzz. And more proof, if anything, that the essence of the next generation web is pure vanity.