Folksonomy Update

Thomas Vander Wal, who coined the term said in a comment here “As coined Folksonomy does not apply to authors tagging it applies to those who use or consume the information.” Excellent, I will do my part to use the term properly. With all the unintended uses out there in the conversation I do foresee having to explain the definition each time. That’s what happens when terminology gets adopted, quite an interesting process. Update 6/12/05: Here’s the rub, folksonomy is often described as “like Flickr and del.icio.us.” Yet Flickr, at this point (see comment) by default, does not allow all users to tag images, only the person who uploaded it and their contacts can do so. Flickr is barely a folksonomy system, according to the original definition–interesting.

It’s also been interesting to (try to) follow the conversation around The trouble with folksonomy (the term). A good method I’ve found is subscribing to a search of my own name. It felt like a narcissistic thing to do, but it’s certainly helpful. My referrer logs are also a very good resource, as most are kind enough to link. My google-self has also changed – now that post is the #1 result.