Posted on May 16, 2006 at 12:29 PM in thoughts
Note: The below is an archived entry from Earthling, formerly EarthLink's official blog. The blog itself has been decommissioned and is no longer updated, and comments are trackbacks are no longer accepted.
Since Dave mentioned my position on tagging, I thought today would be a good chance for me to elaborate on my observations that Google doesn't use tags.
Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch points out that Google's new product Notebook doesn't allow for the use of tags. To me, this is no surprise. This has been a notable observation of mine for sometime now.
It stands to reason why the creator of the most used search engine wouldn't implement a search technique that undermines the way its search engine works. Tags, in my opinion, are user generated keywords and Google has spent lots of time and money perfecting how it uses these keywords - found in the web pages you visit everyday.
In addition, search engines have made billions of dollars selling targeted advertisements based on these keywords. Why would they let you mess that up by allowing you to categorize your information using your tags? I suspect someone will try selling advertising based on tags soon enough though.
Tags evolved because search engines weren't organizing / indexing information the way people wanted it to be organized. Tag enabled applications have gain popularity because they allow the user to tell the application how to organize the information instead of the other way around. I can bookmark a web site about cars using the tag "bikes" if that is how I'll be able to easily find it again.
What is the point of all this? Google won't be supporting tags in the way other applications do anytime soon. They either don't buy into the philosophy of tagging or they are working on a completely new way of categorizing and storing information.
These, of course, are my personal observations on the subject - What are your thoughts?
Comments
Judging from search results I see, I wouldn't call tags meaningless to Google. DIssapointing that they don't offer the kind of active support they ought to though.
Posted by Marshall Kirkpatrick | May 16, 2006 2:30 PM
They seem to like the term "Label" better. Google Reader uses labels. Google Bookmarks uses labels. And Gmail too. In most of these apps their labels seem to work a lot like tags.
Posted by garayr | May 16, 2006 3:30 PM
Have you ever tried Clipmarks?
If you thought that the GNotes concept sounds nice, Clipmarks is the one you should use!
Let's compare GNote to Clipmarks:
Here is what I see that Google's new product does:
1) Creates a bookmark to the page that you were on when you did the notebook thing.
2) Takes whatever text you had highlighted at the time and makes that sorf of "your notes" about that page that is now bookmarked in their system.
3) Allows you then to go in and edit those notes to add your own text, or whatever. With a little html-like editor.
4) Allows you then to go in and look at all your notebook items in the typical Google ugly fashion.
5) No Tagging
6) No Community
Meanwhile, the Clipmarks featureset is completely different:
1) Allows you to clip many pieces from one site or page, or several sites or pages and make them together into ONE NEW PAGE.
2) Allows you to tag these entries for later search retrieval, sharing, networking, etc. Tagclouds help you to find interesting tags easily.
3) Allows you to then quickly and easily send those clippings into a set of "bookmarking" sites like Delicious, etc.
4) Provides an absolutely beautiful, fast, fabulous in every way UI to go and look at your clippings, search them, etc.
5) Provides a great commenting and popping system to foster actual social interaction around your clippings.
6) Provides a way to subscribe to an RSS feed for a tag or a person.
7) Provides a way to make Clips public or private.
8) Lets you subscribe to other Clipmarkers ("Follow"), to have a quick access to their Clipmarks.
9) Provides a print function that really rocks and let you print out pages which originaly can't be printed well because of design errors. Due to the fact that you can clip content from different or multiple pages in one Clipmark, printing was never been easier.
10) All of this is completely integrated into your browser.
Go to http://clipmarks.com and test it! You will love it!
Posted by Funana | May 17, 2006 5:19 AM
garayr,
The difference between ‘tags’ and Google's use of labels is that tags aid with search and the organization of community information. Google's use of labels seems to apply more to the individual user.
Whatever you call the categorizers, the function they serve are still different to me. Google’s use of labels serves to help me find my information and not to help the collective community organize information.
When I tag something for myself it is a selfish act, but it allows the community to benefit from my efforts. Google’s labels don’t inherently allow for that kind of organization which kills the discoverability aspects a more traditional tagging environment allows for.
Thanks for the comments.
Posted by Travis Metcalf | May 17, 2006 11:25 AM
No community means no support from me. I don't need to log my own stuff from the internet--that just means I'm spending way too much time gathering information and not near enough time using it (or living).
Posted by KristenJo | May 19, 2006 2:07 AM