Okay, I have to confess I initially ignored del.icio.us thinking it would go away (mostly because it isn’t owned by Google). But in reading David Weinberger’s book, Everything is Miscellaneous, suddenly the concept—and the importance of it—made sense.
On the web everything truly is miscellaneous. The vast array of information, sites and concepts defies standard rules of organization. Still, people need to be able to find things.
Along came the concept of tagging. Tagging allows you to associate a word with an entry on a blog post, a photo or a website. Though web designers have used keywords since the creation of search engines, tagging is a more informal system. There are no rules, and people make them up based on their own way of mentally organizing things.
While most browsers allow you to sort your favorites into folders (allowing only one designation), del.icio.us allows you to tag your favorite sites. So instead of having to decide if churchproduction.com should go in the “church” folder or the “production” folder, you can tag it with both. For that matter, you can add a host of other tags such as inspiration, audio, video, lighting, random coolness, staging, resources, etc.
It also lets you see other people’s tags introducing you to other sites on the topic. With easy plug-ins for Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Flock, del.icio.us allows you to add your sites with the click of a button.
Of course, my favorite part of del.icio.us has nothing to do with plug-ins, tagging or finding new sites. The best part is that I no longer have to scramble to get back all of my “favorites” when my husband, the computer consultant, arbitrarily reinstalls our operating system.
© Cathy Hutchison 2008
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