Tag....you're it!

Social Bookmarking and Tagging

Before this week's activities I had never heard of del.icio.us before. When I completed the the first activity of just searching for tags, I was amazed at the number of search results I yielded. But my initial thought was - who really takes the time to tag everything? I am a pretty organized person, but I'm not sure I would take the time to do this - even if it did make things more efficient and easy to find in the end. Then when I realized how easy del.licio.us makes it to tag something...even though it is very subjective ,I decided that this was something I could handle.

I think it is great that the tags are subjective to the individual as well. Since we are very focused on a "personalized" technology world...this is a way to find what you like and remember what you like using your own key words. Seeing the similarity of search results when searching certain tags..as well as the difference in sites with the same tags gave a new perspective on what people use the internet for. INCREDIBLE!

Throughout the second activity I found myself trying to think of websites that I use often to add to my del.icio.us page without realizing the amazingness of the "tag" button on the toolbar. I reflected to realize that this button makes everything so much easier and that it just takes training yourself to press that tag button for each website you find yourself going to more and more to make this site worthwhile.

Overall, I think that for people who want everything on the web that they use on a regular basis in one area or who like a more personal search than the trusty, typical Google, social bookmarking and tagging is the way to go. While I'm still not sure how many students would take the time to organize their web lives in this manner it is an option for those who are technically saavy and aware that this technology exists.

I searched "cheer" in flickr and this was my favourite pic: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7301623@N06/418385600/