In order to understand what folksonomies and tags have to do with annotating and categorizing content you are going to need to first understand what folksonomies and tags are. Not only are you going to need to have a basic understanding of what these things are but you are also going to have to have a general idea of how they actually work.
What are folksonomies and how do they work?
Folksonomy is the method of collaboratively creating and managing tags to annotate and categorize content. Basically folksonomy is using words that will help computer search engines to recognize your website and display it on a search engine results page in the proper category. Basically this is done through the use of tags or what other people refer to as key words. In fact folksonomy is also known as collaborative tagging, social classification, social tagging and numerous other names. Basically the purpose of the folksonomies is to allow the users of the community to share user-generated content or to collaboratively label existing content.
What are tags and how do they work?
Tags are used to describe videocasts, podcasts, blogs, articles or numerous other things that you post on the internet. Basically with tags what you do is think of words that you can use to describe what you are posting and include those words with your post. Then the tags are used to search for your information. Basically what happens is people will enter in certain key words and if those key words match your tags then your information will come up for them to look at.
What folksonomies and tags have to do with annotating and categorizing content?
So now that you know what tags and folksonomies are and how they actually work we can go on to discuss what these two things have to do with annotating and categorizing content. But something that you need to be aware of is that tags and folksonomies actually work hand in hand, basically what this means is that if there where no tags there could be no folksonomies. The reason for this is that folksonomies is the actual process used, where tags are just a small step that you need to complete before the process can start to work.
When it comes to folksonomies and tags the thing that you need to know is that you are going to first need tags. The reason for this is that tags are the words that you are using to describe the information that you are posting on the internet. Basically the tags are what you are going to be saying about your information, basically a way to place it into categories. Another way you can look at is that the tags are the best way that you can organize your information. The reason for this is that the words you use to describe the information is what is going to place it and label it according to what it is about.
So once you have described your information with tags you are then going to have to rely on folksonomies to be able to find that information. Basically what happens is that the folksonomies method is what is used to help you search for your information on computer search engines or at community based web sites that allow file sharing. Basically what happens is people enter in the key words or tags that they are looking for and the search engine will give back a reply with the information that best match that search, this is where the folksonomies come in.
So as you can tell both tags and folksonomies are used together on the internet to help organize and find information that is used and needed by other people.