1. Traditionally, we've organized electronic resources like we've organized our libaries.
Based on the library (Dewey) system
Each item belongs in one place (a book can only be one place)
Pre-defined categories/sub-categories/sub-sub-categories, i.e. a predefined Taxonomy.
Defined apriori by experts.
Taxonomy -- The theory and practice of classifying organisms.
Ontology - An ontology is a controlled vocabulary that describes objects and the relations between them in a formal way.
2. Such hierarchical classification schemes are quite common:
Biology
Animal--Vertebrate-- Mammal-- Human--
Windows File Manager
'My Computer' is based on a hierarchy.
Yahoo Directory--
Dave and Jerry's Directory of Cool Sites (David Filo and Jerry Yang)
In late 90's, search as we know it didn't exist. Yahoo's directory brought order to the web.
look up Yahoo in 2000 or so at archive.org. Here's the first 2000 entry:
http://web.archive.org/web/20000229123340/http://www.yahoo.com/
Traditional Bookmark tools in browsers.
3. Problems with the hierarchical, pre-defined approach:
Predefined categories are biased and out of date.
Take, for example, the Dewey categories for religion and history:
Dewey, 200: Religion 210 Natural theology 220 Bible 230 Christian theology 240 Christian moral & devotional theology 250 Christian orders & local church 260 Christian social theology 270 Christian church history 280 Christian sects & denominations 290 Other religions
D: History (general)
Another good example comes from Yahoo's directories:
Booksellers are under Business
Books and Literature are not part of Entertainment, but part of Humanities.
Yahoo held on to the "bookshelf" metaphor, saying that each subcategory went in one place. They did allow some general linking (a subcategory could appear in up to 3 places as a special link).
4. In an electronic world, the "bookshelf" is not needed. A book can be in many places at once!
Google-- Search eliminated Yahoo's directory scheme
But we want to record our Googling work, to organize web resources we care about.
5. Alternative organization scheme: The Folksonomy
Taxonomy-- classes pre-defined by a group of "experts", hierarchical classification.
Folksonomy -- no pre-defined classes, no group of experts, no hierarchy
The "folks" (everyone) create the "directory"
6. Del.icio.us Social Bookmarking Tool
When you bookmark a site, you tag it with keywords.
You don't have to follow some hierarchical tree down to find where to place the resource.
Basically, if the tag is new, a new "category" is created. New or not, the resources is placed in the category defined by the tag.
Users bookmark and tag for selfish reasons (to remember), and also to add to this
social organization of the web.
Browsing the folksonomy
bookmark count of a resource
following people links
following related tags.
John Udell's Delicious Screencast
1. Create an account at http://del.icio.us
2. Go to the "Browser Button" page. Browser Buttons, are also known as "Bookmarklets". Drag the del.icio.us bookmarklets "post to del.icio.us" and "my del.icio.us" into your browser toolbar.
3. Open the web page http://www.shirky.com/writings/ontology_overrated.html in a browser. Click your "post to del.icio.us" bookmarklet. In the del.icio.us posting dialog, tag the page with: "folksonomy" and "cs107", then click OK. You've just bookmarked the Shirky paper.
4. Click on your "my del.icio.us" bookmarklet. Del.icio.us should appear and show you your bookmarks. Browse around and answer the following questions:
How many people have bookmarked the Shirky paper?
Click on the link that reports how many have bookmarked the paper. What does del.icio.us show you? What happens when you click on a link of one of the users who have bookmarked the paper. How is this useful?
What are five tags other than yours that have been applied to the paper?
What are the titles of the top three "related items" to the paper?
What is the most popular page tagged "folksonomy"?
What are three "related tags" to folksonomy?