"The consumer phenomenon is called �tagging� or �folksonomies� (short for folks and taxonomy). Tagging is powerful because consumers are creating an organizational structure for online content."
I'm not sure I like tagging. At least the way it is implemented on del.icio.us. The problem is that I can tag an item, maybe an article with a dev tag. To me it means its a development article, not related to webdev. Whats webdev? A webdev tag is an article that is related to development for the web. So first, others who see my del.icio.us bookmarks might get confused, since each user has his own set of tags and tagging method. Second, a single item can fall into various categories. Third, each user defines a category with his own keyword. People can use Development, Develop, dev, Dev, codedev, code and so forth. No real way of keeping track of whats in a tag. .
It seems to me that the difference between this sort of tagging, is the creation of a portal by the people for the people, whereas normal portals are those that are created by a single authority (for instance, Yahoo Portal). With this kind of tagging, its the people concerned who create those tags. Sort of like the difference between the content of an encyclopedia and a wiki. A wiki system has content generated by the people for the people, whereas an encyclopedia is a system that is generated by a single authority.
Tagging seems pretty chaotic to me, but nature has a way of bringing order from chaos. Lets hope it works!
