“This slide set was presented at the TED 2009 conference, ‘The Great Unveiling’ in Long Beach, CA. USA, 4, Feb 2009.” – (W3C)

“This content has come from more than four years of research and discussions with people using tools, both inside enterprise and using consumer web tools. As enterprise moves more quickly toward more cost effective tools for capturing and connecting information, they are aware of not only the value of social tools, but tools that get out the way and allow humans to capture, share, and interact in a manner that is as natural as possible with the tools getting smart, not humans having to adopt technology patterns.” (Thomas Vanderwal)

“This article explores the fundamentals of metadata, as it relates to common intranet and website needs.” (James Robertson – Step Two Designs)

“The next web will be one of placing humans in context with their objects and visa versa. We’ll use the data our objects provide to better observe and manage them, and the energy they require to own, operate, manufacture, and disassemble.” (Dan Saffer – Kicker Studio)

“Ontologies are enabling technology for the Semantic Web. They are a means for people to state what they mean by the terms used in data that they might generate, share, or consume. Folksonomies are an emergent phenomenon of the Social Web. They arise from data about how people associate terms with content that they generate, share, or consume. Recently the two ideas have been put into opposition, as if they were right and left poles of a political spectrum. This is a false dichotomy; they are more like apples and oranges. In fact, as the Semantic Web matures and the Social Web grows, there is increasing value in applying Semantic Web technologies to the data of the Social Web. This article is an attempt to clarify the distinct roles for ontologies and folksonomies, and previews some new work that applies the two ideas together – an ontology of folksonomy.” (Tom Gruber)

“In the context of computer and information sciences, an ontology defines a set of representational primitives with which to model a domain of knowledge or discourse.” (Tom Gruber)

Video presentation – Thomas Vander Wal presents during the experts workshop ‘Social tagging in the knowledge organisation: Perspectives and potentials’ on January 21, 2008 – courtesy of wolf nöding

“The Semantic Web is an ecosystem of interaction among computer systems. The social web is an ecosystem of conversation among people. Both are enabled by conventions for layered services and data exchange. Both are driven by human-generated content and made scalable by machine-readable data. Yet there is a popular misconception that the two worlds are alternative, opposing ideologies about how the web ought to be. Folksonomy vs. ontology. Practical vs. formalistic. Humans vs. machines. This is nonsense, and it is time to embrace a unified view. I subscribe to the vision of the Semantic Web as a substrate for collective intelligence. The best shot we have of collective intelligence in our lifetimes is large, distributed human-computer systems. The best way to get there is to harness the ‘people power’ of the Web with the techniques of the Semantic Web. In this presentation I will show several ways that this can be, and is, happening.” (Tom Gruber)

“In an hour long interview posted today about the Semantic Web, W3C Director Tim Berners-Lee says all the pieces are in place to move full steam ahead and realize the potential of a world of structured, machine readable data. Available as a part of the Talking with Talis semantic web podcast series, the interview (…) is summarized on interviewer Paul Miller’s new ZDNet blog dedicated to the semantic web.” (ReadWriteWeb)

“Large websites and intranets can benefit from improved methods of search and navigation. These include site maps, A-Z indexes, sophisticated search engines, and generally improved navigational design—and playing a potential role in all of these methods is well-planned taxonomy.” (Heather Hedden – Digital Web Magazine)

“Folksonomies are one of today’s hottest Internet trends. They are but one part of Web 2.0, which, in part, refers to the ability of Internet users to add, change and improve World Wide Web content. A folksonomy is created as users of a website add ‘tags’ (keywords) to describe items on a website. The users choose their own keywords; few or no restrictions are imposed on their choices. The terms are not chosen from a previously existing controlled vocabulary, a strict taxonomy or any other officially sanctioned method of bibliographic description.” (Diane Neal – ASIS&T Bulletin Oct/Nov 2007)

“(…) Tim Berners-Lee’s design for the Semantic Web will enable automatic collection and correlation of various parts of information about an object, available at various different web resources. The Semantic Web will save the valuable time we spend on navigating from one web resource to another in order to obtain meaningful information on a particular object. We would be happy then on finding out, for example, our old friend’s complete information on giving partial hints on the fly without the need of our manually visiting various related web pages! But wait, there’s more.” (Goutam Kumar Saha – ACM Ubiquity)

“The apparently irregular growth and spread of tagging is simply example of the real nature of how innovations spread. Professional analysts and other meaning makers tend to draw smooth graphs to depict these things. But in reality, natural systems (and the tagging / technology landscape is a legitimate ecosystem) are noisy, cyclical, chaotic, complex, fuzzy, non-linear, and unpredictable. They only appear to follow smooth curves at a high level of abstraction, or a low level of resolution.” (Joe Lamantia – tagsonomy)

“For many reasons, tagging has not yet emerged – and may never emerge – as a category of technology investment and activity for businesses.” (Joe Lamantia – tagsonomy)

“It’s not that I disagree with David about the power and potential of user participation in the creation and organization of knowledge. But, I do believe that the old serves as foundation for and coexists with the new (…)” (Peter Morville – Semantic Studios)

“David and Cory discuss the advantages and pitfalls of explicit and implicit metadata, tags and the rules governing the use and re-use of content in commerce and culture.” (David Weinberger – Epicenter Wired)

“When working with government and large private organizations on complex information systems, project managers and business representatives often demand early-stage validation that the proposed classification system provides the user-friendly solution they are charged with delivering. They also require this validation in a format that will be engaging for senior business stakeholders.” (Iain Barker – Boxes and Arrows)

“Integrating digital content from libraries, archives and museums represents a persistent challenge. While the history of standards development is rife with examples of cross-community experimentation, in the end, libraries, archives and museums have developed parallel descriptive strategies for cataloguing the materials in their custody. Applying in particular data content standards by material type, and not by community affiliation, could lead to greater data interoperability within the cultural heritage community. In making this argument, the article demystifies metadata by defining and categorizing types of standards, provides a brief historical overview of the rise of descriptive standards in museums, libraries and archives, and considers the current tensions and ambitions in making descriptive practice more economic.” (Mary W. Elings and Günter Waibel – First Monday 12.3)

“Taxonomies – at least some of them – reveal the order of things. They increase knowledge by manifesting multifaceted relationships among things. In that light, tagging and folksonomies look like the vulgarizing of knowledge, and well-bred taxonomies turn up their perky noses at the ill-manner interlopers. But the new taxonomizing does more than increase knowledge. It reveals meaning.” (David Weinberger – ASIS&T Bulletin Feb/Mar 2007) – courtesy of theiainstitute