Tagging or Folders?

Because of flickr as well as Facebook, I think “tagging” has gained a lot of popularity in the recent years. Whenever I think about “tags”, I will associate them with “keywords” or names of categories. And these keywords are exactly used to describe some photos, documents or web pages on the internet.

Although many people like using tagging nowadays, I am not a big fan of it. Imagining you want to look for a picture which is about kissing. You have tried all the possible keywords but still cannot find a good one. Later, you find a kissing picture that you really love by accident. However, when you look at it carefully, you find that its tag is made up of symbols only. Don’t you feel annoyed about discovering that? I mean, why are they relevant? I sometimes encountered this problem and I would feel very upset even though I had found the picture I wanted. I am not saying that that tag is used wrongly but what I am trying to say is, the meaning of a tag can be very personal and ambiguous. Sometimes, some tags may have no meaning at all!!!At least, those symbols are really not meaningful for the rest of us. I guess that the reason behind this is that the folksonomy users don’t have a set of formal guidelines to follow when they create the tags. 

There is still one advantage of using folders. That is, everything  will be very organized but not messy. Take a look at this video which is about "SmartFolders". Don't you think that everything is well organized and appropriately located? 

Of course, some people may argue that folders also have some limitations. Like Rodney said, people have to decide which folder they should put a picture or whatever item in each time. They can only put the picture in a single folder at a time if they don’t duplicate it. Yet, personally, I still like folders more. I can always find the pictures I want somewhere in a right folder but they are not floating around in a big sea. For example, I can easily find those vineyard pictures in a folder called “Vineyard”. =] I don't have to search 10 different keywords to get a picture I really want! 

At last, I want to share another video that teaches the lovers and owners of iPhone 4 who want to create folders on their phone.

Which one do you guys favor? Tagging or Folders?

My digital life

Due to the advanced development of the technology, people’s lives have changed a lot from the past decades. This is particularly obvious in the aspect of human communication.

Nowadays, I use 3G mobile phone, MSN, Facebook or sometimes email to keep in touch with friends. Thanks to their convenience and efficiency, I just need to click on a button “send”, my friends will be able to read my messages or even picture messages in a minute. I can’t imagine how my life will be without them. I remember when the first day I landed in Sydney, I was so anxious about calling my parents that I had arrived. In the old days, people would write letters or use pigeons to deliver their messages. Yet, nowadays, it would be insane for me to write a letter to my parents since it would take approximately a week for them to receive it. I just used my 3G phone to call them and they could even see me walking around in Sydney.

For entertainment, I use ipod Nano to listen to music. Sometimes, I like to watch TV series on Tudou or YouTube. Whenever and wherever I go, I always bring my digital camera with me. All because I love taking photos!!! What’s more, I like sharing some fashion news with other online friends in my friend’s BeautyExchange blog. The above is a post talking about hats. 


Talking about blogs or online journals, the language used in this kind of media is pretty interesting. What I mean is, people like to add smileys to express or emphasize their feelings or meanings. They also like to use abbreviation. For example, “ttyl”, which means “Talk to you later”. It is also very common in digital telecommunication. People like to abbreviate words so that they can cram a long message into one single SMS. It’s true that it’s very convenient but it sometimes causes miscommunication or misunderstanding. The older generation like our parents may not even understand what they are.

So, I really wonder why and how these new communication technologies are changing or perhaps have greatly influenced the way we communication with people in terms of language use. I also want to know whether they have changed the relationship between different people. How do people construct their identity in those online blogs or Facebook compared with that in real life? What is the relationship between these two kinds of identities? By studying this course, I want find out the answers.