Folksonomy

Design for Selfishness

In Design, Folksonomy, Geek, Internet, Tags, Technorati on 11 April 2006 with Comments Off

In 1996, Paulina Borsook wrote a story that, frankly, really pissed me off. In “Cyberselfish,” published in Mother Jones and eventually turned into a book, she wrote about how new have-it-your-way technology was creating a generation of spoiled brats with computers.
I took umbrage. Not only was I a proud member of the generation she [...]

How Tags Happened at Technorati

In Blogging, Folksonomy, Internet, Powazek, Technorati, Weblogs on 25 July 2005 with Comments Off

It’s been six months since we added Tags to Technorati (where I’m Senior Designer), and as it turns out, it was a pretty big deal. So before we get too far away from it, here’s the story of how it came about. From my perspective, anyway.
Firstly and most importantly, Technorati did not invent tagging. We [...]

Searching vs. Browsing

In Blogging, Folksonomy, Tags, Technorati on 19 January 2005 with Comments Off

Or: Why you’re gonna be hearing the word “tag” a lot
Think about these two words for a moment: “Search” and “Browse.” They’re words that are used frequently to describe things we do on computers. But consider their traditional associations:
Browsing is shopping, strolling, flipping through a magazine. Browsing is fun, casual, entertaining.
Searching is mechanical, trial and [...]