Random Culture

I Like Wink

Wink is an interesting new search engine. It allows users to search across many "tagging" sites, such as Digg and Del.icio.us, and rate the results. However, it also searches Google, and allows users to "rate" those results. I wish Google had a feature like this. It allows something other than an algorithm to help me determine the most useful results for a search.

Do I think Wink has a bright future? Who knows... But the functionality certainly is interesting. The search engines could learn a thing or two from this idea. Could a "rating" system be another way to help fight search engine spam?

Yahoo! Buys Del.icio.us

That's right... Del.icio.us is now a part of the Yahoo! family. You can read more about it on the Del.icio.us blog, as well as on the Yahoo Search Blog. One of the first things happening seems to be work between Flickr and Del.icio.us. I can't wait to see the results!

Google, if you're listening, you'd better jump on the bandwagon. Flickr and Del.icio.us both belong to Yahoo now.

Yellow Arrow Project

The Yellow Arrow Project is coined a "global public art project" by its creators, but it's more than just that. It's a tagging of the physical world through mobile technology. How does it work?

"Participants place arrows to draw attention to different locations and objects - a favorite view of the city, an odd fi re hydrant, the local bar. By sending a text-message (SMS) from a mobile phone to the Yellow Arrow number beginning with the arrow's unique code, Yellow Arrow authors essentially save a thought on the spot where they place their sticker."

The above image is an example of one of the stickers. Visit the Yellow Arrow Project site to order your own stickers, or a shirt with a unique code that operates in the same way.

Del.icio.us Gets Funding

Del.icio.us creator Joshua Schachter has decided to take on outside investment in order to quit his day job and work on Del.icio.us full-time. I'll keep my fingers crossed for Joshua and the rest of us that this "outside investment" won't have a negative influence.

Link via BoingBoing.

Wists?

Fred Wilson points to Wists, a new site funded partially by Nick Denton of Gawker fame. Fred offers a great explanation about what Wists is:

"It's part Del.icio.us and part Flickr. It's more del.icio.us than Flickr really but it grabs whatever image is on the page to add a graphical element to the tag and that's a nice improvement.  The interface feels like Flickr while the functionality feels like del.icio.us."

This looks like it has some promise... at least, the idea of adding thumbnails to lists of tags. I wouldn't be surpised if we see a service like del.icio.us adding this type of functionality. I think the more likely scenario is that Technorati jumps on the bandwagon and runs this space. They're already showing results for Flickr tags on the same page as other tag results

Findory "Neighbors"

John Battelle points to a great new tool from Findory, called Findory "Neighbors", that uses weighted lists to help users discovered related blogs. Here's the link to the Findory "Neighbors" for Random Culture.

It's definitely still in the initial stages, but shows promise. You can send your ideas/feedback about it to suggestions at findory dot com.

Spam and Folksonomies

Wired has an article up on folksonomies. You may remember a post on this particular subject a few days ago, that gave a good breakdown of what folksonomies and tagging are...

What's interesting to me in this article is a point that Thomas Vander Wal, the guy credited with coining the term "folksonomy," brings up. He points out that "because Technorati's system works by having blog posts with embedded tags that point to Technorati, which in turn point back to the posts", it can be a big turn on for spammers.

This is one of the issues that I haven't heard much about in relation to tagging and folksonomies.

Tagging is so similar to the meta tags used early in the days of meta search. Why wouldn't this new tagging be subject to the same issues that caused the downfall of meta tags?

The answer is supposed to be because the community, not an individual, is tagging stuff. But that's not how some of these technologies actually work.

Let's say that I want to make money through affiliate programs, so I set up a blog that has posts for all the products I'm pushing. I get my blog in the Technorati mix, and start falsely tagging my posts for things like "Anna Kournikova" or "Tsunami Videos."

The rebuttal from Cory Doctorow is that when you go into Technorati's tag list, you see results from Technorati, del.icio.us, Flickr and Furl. Clearly, I would see results from many different places, and consensus would help guide my judgment. But this doesn't dispute the fact that tags for some of these services could be abused by "tag spammers."

I think the reason we aren't hearing much about this weakness is that not many ruthless affiliates, for example, have latched onto it. I think that in the very near future, however, we'll see both legitimate and fraudulent marketers using "tag spamming" on these services to their advantage.

Update: Check out Thomas Vander Wal's comments about this on his blog. He's able to clarify a bit more why del.icio.us seems to be doing it right, and how Technorati might be getting it wrong, and what can be done about it.

"The Tag Report"

Micro Persuasion points to some great stuff on tagging and folksonomies over at Jeremy Wagstaff's blog. Jeremy is a WSJ.com reporter, and has apparently taken interest in the subject. He's got some great content on the site, including an interview with Joshua Schachter, the creator of del.icio.us.

Tags & "Folksonomies"

Threadwatch has a great post, entitled "Tags & Folksonomies - What are they, and why should you care? It's a great primer on what's shaping up to be the next "big thing."