Web 2.0

Bruce Sterling on tagging and Web 2.0

From a much longer (and very funny) presentation at Webstock 09:

Let's look at a few of these Web 2.0 principles and practices.
"Tagging not taxonomy." Okay, I love folksonomy, but I don't think it's gone very far. There have been books written about how ambient searchability through folksonomy destroys the need for any solid taxonomy. Not really. The reality is that we don't have a choice, because we have no conceivable taxonomy that can catalog the avalanche of stuff on the Web. We have no army of human clerks remotely able to tackle that work. We don't even have permanent reference sites where we can put data so that we can taxonomize it....

"Dynamic content." Okay, content is a stable substance that is put inside a container. It's stored in there: that's why you put it inside. If it is dynamically flowing through the container, that's not a container. That is a pipe. I really like dynamic flowing pipes, but since they're not containers, you can't freakin' label them!


There's a lot more, about the next thing, which he calls the Transitional Web. Worth the read.