Thomas van der Wal invented the term folksonomy. It’s all about tagging.
He’s raised an interesting point about tagging: identity. It’s very important to know who created the tags so you can decide who’s tag you want to trust. He uses the example of tagging an article on the middle east conflict as either “armageddon” or “mild conflict”. Through identity comes community.
Is there a conflict between folksonomy (tags) and taxonomy? Yes, but you can use the folksonomy to feed into the taxonomy. And probably vice versa.
At this point, my ear infection started playing up and I had to exit quickly to get some fresh air. Plus the laptop battery was dying.
I came back jujst in time to catch Jeff Veen talking about designing the complete user experience. He’s an extremely funny guy. Especially his idealised versions of the ebay & microsoft web interfaces… Jeff is embarrassingly tall and an excellent speaker. Oh, and he loves cycling too. Even after coming off going downhill in sanfran! His presentation should be up on veen.com somewhere, but I can’t remember the URL right now.
Anyway, it’s been a great day. All of us who went seemed to really enjoy ourselves and get a lot out of it.
Now, I’m going to see how my ear holds out and see if I can make it to the after show party down at Terraces. (not a bad place; I also attend Café scientifique there)
Jabbering Giraffe 