What's Hot in Technology - Tags!

Tags, Tags, Tags!


It seems like everyone online has suddenly gone crazy for a game you gave up in elementary school. What gives?

Tags (in the virtual world) are nothing more than keywords, selected and defined by users to help identify certain types of user-provided content. In other words, they are words you associate with your del.icio.us links, YouTube videos, or a flickr photos so that when people search for a certain word or phrase (such as "CTLT" or "CTLT_is_awesome") they'll get the results you want.

Some groups and organizations are asking their members to use specific tags when uploading material that is relevant to the organization. Sometimes groups even request members use tags for different events.

How is this useful to you? Why should you care about tagging? Read on for . . .


A Tale of Two Clubs


Part I: The Experiment


The Goucher College Star Trek Club is looking to attract new students and Star Trek fans. They hold a series of events and ask everyone to take lots of video and pictures for the website. Once prospective students see how awesome the Star Trek Club is, they'll be sure to come to Goucher! In addition to the pictures and video, they ask everyone to send a link to their favorite Star Trek website to the club's Vice President, Charlie Chekhov.

 Mr. Chekhov now has some pictures and video clips (but not all, because some people forgot to email them to him), and an email box full of links. Chekhov must now spend the next two or three days uploading all of these pictures and video clips to the Goucher College Star Trek Club's website (but he probably won’t upload everything he got because he has a Math exam on Monday and a paper due Thursday). Then he must go to bulletin boards, fan club meetings, conventions and other places where Trekkies hang out (online and off-line) to advertise the website (but he also has to start looking for an Internship for the summer, so his time is limited, and he can only go to one or two bulletin boards online).

The Goucher College Star Wars Club is also looking to attract new students and Star Wars fans. They hold a series of events and ask everyone to take lots of video and pictures. Once prospective students see how awesome the Star Wars Club is, they'll be sure to come to Goucher! In addition to the pictures and video, they ask everyone to find a link to their favorite Star Wars website. Erin Amidalav, the club's Vice President, tells everyone to use the tag "GoucherStarWars" when they upload their videos and pictures, and to use the same tag when saving their favorite link to del.icio.us. Since all members will want to share their videos, pictures and links with friends, they'll be uploading anyway, and it's a cinch to add a tag.

Part II: The Results

Charlie spends a lot of time and effort gathering all this information for maybe a dozen folks.

Erin spends little time and effort gathering all this information. Erin is thus able to focus more of her time on promotion (and her schoolwork) and less on the mechanics. A simple search for "GoucherStarWars" on del.icio.us, YouTube, and flickr provide all the ammunition he needs to convince people Goucher is the only school for Trekkies. New content is constantly added as Goucher Star Wars Club members upload new videos or pictures they want to share with the club. In addition, Star Wars fans who don’t know anything about Goucher come across these pictures and videos as they search for other material on these Web 2.0 sites. They recommend Goucher to their friends. Word spreads. And spreads. And spreads.