tags are personal

the fundamental value of tagging came home to me in the midst of an argument with Salim Ismail at lunch during the Corante Symposium on Social Architecture. We were debating the long term utility of  tags. Tags would soon become obsolete he maintained: tags as ways to describe content would be superceeded by better ways to index information resources.

If a tag was just about a resource, if it functioned purely as a neutral descriptor, then yes, self-describing content would make tags obsolete. But is that what tags are?

By assigning a tag to a resource, I'm making an assertion that this is what that resource is about. I'm declaring what it means to me. The meaning embodied in my tag is likely to be contextually defined -- reflecting the place that i'm in, the project i'm working on, the problem that i am trying to solve, my personal history and thought patterns. so that tag exists between me and the resource: it's a nexus. it embodies a personal liminal space. i define its meaning by that context.

This self-definition of meaning explains why tags play a significant role not in information discovery, but in re-discovery. I want to find things again, things that i have found previously. i want to be able to use resources in my own conceptual space.

The personal meaning also contributes to the value of tags in a public context. If you are interested in what i think or what i'm thinking about, then you're interested in my tags. But you might not be interested in the same tags as assigned by someone else. it's my meaning-making that gives the tag value. You're participating in my thought processes, following my personal trail.