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Hypertext , blargararghertext... . I can't believe this cool debate has turned into a "definitions" argument. :) Back on point! 1) categories and tags are fundamentally different. I really do like Devlons description too. It's an awesome description. "posts are assigned to categories, tags are assigned to posts"... I think that fundamentally brilliant. However as of late things like wordpress are starting to distort this line. I think in the future categories as we know it will all but diappear.... under the heal of things like "clustering". It's a constant battle between top down methods of organization, and bottom up ones. Tags are right smack dab in the middle. The front lines of the new architecture vs. the old. Categories are ussually obtuse... you might have "life, business, media, fun stuff".... tags because they're assigned to posts and not vice versa are often very specific and insightful. You can read them almost as you'd read the post itself.... joe blow, videobloggingweek2006, livingdangerously. Wordpress categories are not there yet, but they're breaking down in this manner because the way you specify them in the interface is changing. So, categories are getting more relevant... They're still not tags, but they're getting much more relevant. I think it warrants some consideration as to implimenting them. 2) Tags in the RSS is a great idea... the specification of the url always struck me as funny though... but I'm slowly begging to recognize that the url is an indication of the community one identifies with... it's very important context that goes beyond tags into this are of clustering and another thing called facets. I like to call this "realms"... As is posts from my friends tagged "fish"... then there's tags from the mefeedia community tagged "fish"... then the technoratti community... each of these realms have different ideas of what a fish is. So... basically wether your specifying a tag for technorati or mefeedia could be important and valueable information, but it's specified all wrong for RSS. Instead of a url to technorati or mefeedia, tags should be specified like namespace. Essentially saying "I subscribe to this community"... or "i declare the following tags to be of this community". I'll have to pull up some specifications and code and do some examples. But first I must make sure media RSS doesn't already have this in the spec. There's many people who know RSS way better than me. Where's andreas when you need him. 3) Community context and tags. Warning, crazy theory here. Not for the faint of heart. Sorry, I tried to keep it short, but as ussual I failed. I could see somehow, via browser magic, or CSS or greasemonkey script in the future the ability for the user to see the intended object community of the tag, but also to choose the community they want to go to with that tag. I can't see having 40 or so like tags pointing to 18 different communities. I could see though one day aggregators comparing the focuses of communities through the relation of their tag clouds. Sure you might want to specify technoratti right now, but your tags may be lost in the muck at technoratti... and at mefeedia for example a tag like "living dangerously" might find much more relevance. The choosing of the community then acts as another modifier of focus... it's much like defining a document namespace. I could see thousands of communities with focuses everywhere from Anime, to metalshaping, to cricket. Data infinitely mined. You could see who's the favorite singer of the Deviant Art Community... vs. the favorite singer of the disney network, just by how many times a community taged "music". Communities give tags context and that's awesome, awesome awesome.... it further breaks this notion of... or at least deconstructs the notion of there being one winner, one truth... or as I like to call it, the "one tag cloud to rule them all". It the fundamental notion that popularity is important, that newspapers can or should be unbiased, or that words can only have one meaning. It's the global mindset, the "group think". The very idea that we all must agree on anything is absurd... and it's irrelevant. Interestingly it's this very notion... the western values and ideals... that radicals and extremests claim to be fighting against. Indeed our capitalist ideals in the U.S. have spread like a virus... But why must society function on one system where the most commercially successful wins. The so called moralistic "race to the bottom" as some call it. Profits up... ethical and moral issues down. Why can't we function on multiple economic ideals? Why can't we say goodbye to the Oscars "best picture" and hello freaking relevance and context based on identity and community? Our society was dominated by the simple mediated systems with their complete lack of capacity for alternative ideals that created empowered such ideas as nationalism and homogenous societies... and their breakdown from the a few big networks, to 100's of cable networks has started to break down the call to center of one ideal. Perfect example... the rise of Sundance and dozens of other independant festivals and awards where once there was only the oscars.... but this is all being radically undone with the internet... because the capacity, for 'channels" if you want to continue to use that metaphor is now infinite. Hence so to will the presence of infinite complexities of ideals. The chances are if you can make it they'll be a market somewhere in the world for it, and possibly an award to go with it. The unfolding architecture of tags deconstructs or at least reflects this new fabric of society... its not being "broken down", not becoming anarchistic, it's becomeing more complex, and more granular. Systematically deconstructed. What's interesting is as these new bottom up structures that are inherent in the internet take over how will age old systems and traditions like our two party political system weather them? I heard a great but boring podcast on this just the other day. In summary, yeah, I'm a nut, but that does not mean that there isn't a relationship between tagging media and the way our culture, our identity, and our communities work.... tags are assigned to posts, posts are assigned to categories... . one is bottom up, the other top down... one editorialized like the NY times and other traditional media... the other a folksonomy that creates form out of collective action. There's a strong relationship between this and the way we function... do you choose your friends.... or do you let them choose you? Do you choose from amond existing politcal parties... or is the political party you belong to created of your unique beliefs. These are at the heart of the relationship between "group think" and "collective intelligence", which is to say they're at the heart of how the world functions on a most fundamental level. vs. The very geography of our cuture is changing. Sure as there's no longer 57 channels and nothing on... our culture will change as the mediated systems that connect us change. Yes, it's that Marshal Mcluhan "medium is the message" crap. The fundamental conflict between the realities we live in and the commericial shaped idealization of identity, community and reality we see on TV, News, print and other mediums is being erroded. And hopefully as this rift errodes so to will the issues born of this conflict. Hopefully much healthier attitudeds of identity, community, and perhaps even a lessening of so called "social diseases" from general depression to anerexia. But that's just the tip of the iceberg... hypotheses that will play out so slowly on such a widespread level that they trends will only be recognizeable in hindsite 100+ years from now... And in that time I'm sure we'll generate new conflicts and issues to replace them. A new tyrany of the masses, as I hear some say. Anyway, it's all crazy talk... it's just damn tags. :) Oh and just for the record, I think RSS fundamentally is hypertext. :P That it can't be clicked upon is only a matter of the application os styling and CSS... and many RSS feeds now have that.... in fact browsers like safari are even applying deflying degault styles. it's almost the exact same document object model as HTML these days anyway. In fact I think we're going to have to stop calling it HTML. :) -Mike On Apr 18, 2006, at 3:10 PM, Michael Sullivan wrote: yes, that is correct.
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- Re: [videoblogging] Re: Reltag support Michael Meiser
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- Re: [videoblogging] Re: Reltag support Michael Meiser
