Last Thursday’s Unworkshop on Learning+Web 2.0 covered the topic of tags. Since tags are such an important aspect of Web 2.0, I was surprised not to find a graphic explaining the difference between formal and informal tagging. Ripping off ideas from both David Weinberger and Clay Shirky (I only steal from the best), I slapped together this image for discussion:
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Trees and leaves are a useful way to think about tags. But to complete the image, it is necessary to think larger: in terms of a forest. The open Internet forest is a network that follows the laws of small-world networks. This virtual forest has many trees (hierarchies) growing within it. Those trees sprout leaves. Two other very interesting things happen as well: 1) leaves from one tree can link to leaves of another (can’t happen in a biological forest hierarchy), and 2) leaves not attached to trees exist in profusion. Tags make leaves able to find each other, and when they do networks of leaves form independent of trees. Trees (hierarchies), in fact, are fading from relevance in the new global virtual knowledge ecology.
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