It has always been confusing from my perspective - being young in the field - of IA and the like and trying to keep up with the thinkers and the followers. What’s right; what’s wrong? How do users truly use the data on a site and how to better “get at” the information which we so desire? From user testing and building sites in the last few years, I can see how users currently get to data, but the real question is, “How can we make it better?” What is the next metaphor for data mining and getting to the data we want? I know you speak of the “come to me web” but really achieving that is the next big hurdle. Pointing and clicking is getting tedious and old, especially with all that is out there to grab in cyberspace. I want more ease of use and a better way to get to what I want, when I want it.

Technorati uses these in an odd manner, in that they aggregate them outside the sites they pull them from. The Technorati approach mixes many focusses for tags and categories in one interface and weights them all the same, which has some problems. The focus of the tagging is a problem as the anybody who hits the Technorati page does not know if the tag relates to an outside link being pointed to in a post, the posting itself, an explicit idea in the post, and/or a general idea being expressed in the post.

Additionally the idea of tagging for others has a term, which is not folksonomy but metacrap.

I have well over 150 categories or keywords I use for my site. They do not make a lot of sense outside my site, but are useful to find other similar information within my site itself. I am always wanting to add more, which I may in the not too distant future as I have modified my focus and interests and the categories need to keep up. I also apply more than one category to a post as the goal is to more easily aggregate similar items than it is to apply just one category and have one distinct meaning for each entry.

I’ve settled on using my WordPress categories for “big picture” organization, and leave tags for on-the-fly ideas that might not be worthwhile creating a complete category for.

I’ve just dropped the “Technorati Tags Bookmarklet” javascript (I think originally created by Matt from Oddio) into my browser toolbar folder (as a bookmark) for easy access.

Here’s the script:

javascript:(function(){var a='';var t=prompt('Enter Tags:','');var tr=t.split(' ');a+='Technorati Tags: ';for(var i=0;i 0){a+=', ';}a+=''+tr[i]+”;}a+=”;prompt(’Copy this code, press OK, then paste to your blog entry:’,a);})()

(yeah, right)

All is well. I just returned from a long weekend in Chicago this past weekend. More on that in a post tomorrow. There will be photos-a-plenty as well. I saw on your blog you were playing manager. Have fun with that. Speaking of FHWA, INDUS called me the other day about the open position with you guys. WEIRD!!

Hope all is well with you! I’m playing manager this week, so my brain’s gone all fuzzy.