Folksonomy research

I've looked around for a definition of Folksonomy and this is my favourite: "A folksonomy begins with tagging. On the Web site Flickr, for example, users post their photos and label them with descriptive words. You might tag the picture of your cat, "cat," "Sparky" and "living room." Then you'll be able to retrieve that photo when you're searching for the cute shot of Sparky lounging on the couch. If you open your photos and tags to others, as many Flickr devotees do, other people can examine and label your photos." http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/magazine/11ideas1-21.html Folksonomy for me has applications in my file management system. If I look through files on my computer, it provides a snapshot of my personal folksonomy. I divide my documents into the various components of my life. The components range from 'orphan' files that do not belong in any folder but whose filenames are very explicit (because they are desperately looking for a home) to big fat folders containing many other folders and subfolders. As you dig deeper, the information contained in the file names becomes less explicit and more generic. For example, in my documents folder there is a file called ICT 2 because it contains files that are concerned with the second semester of my CSU study. As you drill down you eventually end up with files called 'images' or 'posts' or 'pdfs'. The 'tags' (or filenames) of these files tell you very little about their content unless you locate them using the file path window. Once you read the file path you know everything. You understand MY folksonomy...........