Folksonomies and the New Economy

When the internet was first created, people predominantly used programs such as the Yahoo Directory and Encyclopaedia Britannica to search for information. These are websites which permit users to peruse through certain topics labelled under various headings such as history, sport and music; a very taxonomical approach. The issue with this form of searching is that there is no room for flexibility. With these search engines, there is no consideration of the fact some people may have differing views as to what heading a topic should be placed under, placing significant limitations on a user’s ability to find specific and relevant information.

One major development in new media technology known as tagging has made finding accurate information a much simpler task in the modern era. Tagging is the term used when people choose their own keywords to label information they find on the web. Few or no restrictions are imposed on these choices (Neal, 2007, p.7).

The process of using these tags as a reference point for future searches is known as Folksonomies. This term was first coined by Thomas Van Derwal. He stated that the act of Folksonomy was committed “in a social environment (usually shared and open to others)" (2007). The social book marking site Delicious is a perfect example of a website which uses this form of searching. Users have the capacity to bookmark or tag any webpage they may find using their own terminology. Not only does this make finding the document easier for them in the future, it also means other users have a greater chance of finding it, if they are seeking the same information. The problem of having too many irrelevant search returns is rapidly diminishing, as folksonomies is becoming more prominent all over the web. Another example is the photo-sharing site Flickr, where users upload and tag photos under a certain heading, making it easier for both the individual and other users to find.

Unlike taxonomical searching, the Folksonomical approach has fewer limitations and also broadens horizons in relation to finding information. Not only are users able to make more refined searches, increasing their chances of finding relevant information, documents are now often displayed with a related tags feature. A major implication of this is the new found ability of people to find information they may once never have located. They will be able to learn about unfamiliar topics, simply because they have searched for certain information and observed documents in related tags.

For this reason I believe it has been imperative in the rise of the new economy, or the information age, where there is a “growing importance of ideas and intangibles over objects and things” (Flew, 2005, p.147). If more value is now placed in a person’s knowledge as opposed to their material assets, a trend such as Folksonomies is only going to improve people’s chances of being considered ‘wealthy’ in the information age. Never before have people had such an opportunity to expand their knowledge-base because never before has society been exposed to so much information. The new economy will certainly benefit from an increasing presence of social sharing environments which use this Folksonomical approach.

REFERENCE LIST

Flew, T. (2005). New Media: An Introduction. (2nd ed.). Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

Neal, D. (2007). Introduction: Folksonomies and Image Tagging: Seeing the Future?. Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 34(1), 7-11. Retrieved April 21, 2008, from Proquest.

Van Derwal, T. (2007). Folksonomy. Retrieved April 20, 2008, from http://www.vanderwal.net/folksonomy.html