Most SharingLinks users tell me they really like the thumbnail preview that appears when you hover over a bookmark. But a few have told me it drives them CRAZY! Not wanting to harm anyone’s mental health, we have now made this feature optional. So those of you who don’t like it, can simply edit your profile, and turn these previews off.

Another change I have wanted for awhile was opening the bookmarks in a new window. When I am using SharingLinks to research new topics, I invariably want to go back to the site for more goodies. So we have changed the default behavior to open bookmarks in a new window. But we also made this configurable,so each of you can choose your own default: new window or same window.

Both of the options are found by going to your My Bookmarks page, then looking in the right-hand column for “Edit My Profile.” If you make no changes, the default will be to display thumbnail previews and to open bookmarks in a new window.

Like these new features? Let me know.

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.

If you are interested in posting things on the internet then you are probably going to want to take the time to learn a little bit more about folksonomies and tags. The reason for this is that these two things are very important when it comes to searching for things on the internet and labeling your information on the internet. Basically without these two things searching for certain things on the internet would be almost next to impossible. It is through tagging and folksonomies that we are able to label our information in a way that makes it easier for other people to find it.

Here are some things that you should know about folksonomies and tags.

Number one:

One thing that you should know about folksonomies is that they actually became popular on the internet around 2004 with social software applications such as social bookmarking or annotating photographs. The websites that support tagging and the folksonomy principle are referred to in the context of Web 2.0 because participation is extremely easy, not to mention the fact that tagging data is used in numerous ways to help find the information that you are looking for.

Number two:

Since tagging data and folksonomies kind of go hand in hand with each other you are going to need to know a little bit more about tagging data. One way that tagging data is used to help you find the information you are looking for is through tag clouds. Basically tag clouds are used a lot to actually visualize the most used tags of a folksonomy. Which something else you need to know is that the term folksonomy is also used to denote only the set of tags that are created in social tagging.

Number three:

As the folksonomies develop in internet-mediated social environments people can usually discover who created a folksonomy tag, not to mention see the other tags that this person created. What this basically means is that folksonomy users often discover the tag sets of another user who usually interprets the tag content in a way that makes sense to them. What this does is provides the user with a rewarding gain to find related content, which is also known as pivot browsing.

Number four:

Something that you want to keep in mind about tags is that even though there is no limit on how many tags you can use to describe your content there are some things that you need to keep in mind when it comes to creating tags. First of all when you are creating tags to describe your information you are going to want to choose tags that are relevant to what you are describing. Basically you are not going to want to choose words that do not describe your information. For example if your article is about cats you are not going to want to create a tag called cows.

Number five:

The second thing that you want to keep in mind is that sure the more tags you create the more chances your information will be found, but there is such thing as going overboard. Basically you are not going to want to use every word that you can think of to describe your article because then your information will pop up in places where it is not really needed.

Number six:

Something that you need to know about tags is that they offer you a way to categorize your content, but with tags this process is actually a lot more fluid and flexible. The reason that the method of using tags is more fluid and flexible is because you are not limited to only using certain categories; basically you are using a variety of words and/or phrases to describe your content. Basically what this means is that you can have as many tags as you want to help you describe your information, and it has been proven that the more tags you use the more chances are your information will be found.