Warning: slightly off-topic rant follows

The article leads me to think, though, about how the buzzword-hungry internets seem to be mashing the terms "folksonomy" and "tag" into the same thing. Tags are a terrific way to organize data, as the break out of the more restrictive hierarchical structures (like a directory tree on your hard drive), and allow you to associate multiple pieces of information with a particular item (like a file).

A folksonomy, though, introduces a subtle but important distinction in that it describes an emergent vocabulary that evolves as a group of people apply their own categorizations to a shared item. del.icio.us is an example of folksonomy, and it has radically improved my efficiency when performing certain kinds of web seraches. While organizing files in this way is a tremendous shift in personal organization, it is clearly not a folksonomy.

(Originally posted on Distracto)