Article,
Folk Wisdom
IEEE Spectrum, (February 2006)
Abstract
Web geeks have long fantasized about a Web taxonomy, a classification scheme that would encompass the entire Web - not just sites, but also content such as images and blog posts. But we won't get a true Web taxonomy until the process switches from top down to ground up. And that's just what we're starting to see happen all over the Web. Ordinary users are creating their own taxonomic schemes. Only this isn't taxonomy. It's folksonomy, an ad hoc classification scheme that Web users invent as they surf to categorize the data they find online. Folksonomists apply descriptive keywords, or tags, to the objects they come across. Social software - software that enables users to share information and collaborate online - makes these tags available to other users. Folksonomy is a kind of experiment in collective intelligence, the hallmark of what some people are calling Web 2.0.
