[Tagdb] TagCamp 2005 trip report

[Nitin Borwankar]

Tags: why-tag-email TagTalk email taglines tags

Hi Jeremy,

The difference between a tagline in email (which we called TagTalk tags) and

a) subject line in email
b)  Gmail tags

is being discussed in excruciating detail on the TagCamp googlegroup -  
tagcamp at googlegroups.com
but I'll answer your questions here with the proviso that the rest of 
the discussion be taken offline so as not to dilute the low volume  high 
signal/noise ratio
of this list.

a) On email list archives and on ordinary email threads, the content of 
the email very often drifts away from the subject line in proportion to 
the length of the thread.  Tags allow the thread structure to be 
maintained on the archive under the Subject but allows the author ( if 
they wish ) to furthe indicate the content.  *Just as you very naturally 
did in creating the tagline in your email*.   A tagline is email is 
optional, lightweight and meant to make it easy for readers to see the 
intent of the sender and later to find the message.
In future it is possible that one may be able to search across email 
archives for specific  tags and even subscribe to RSS feeds across email 
archives.
In such cases tagged email will be found better than untagged email.  
There is some feeling that text search is better but consider 
subscribing to an RSS feed of text search term and you will intuitively 
see why this might not be so good. TagTalk tags also make it possible 
for me to search across object types for the same tag and include email 
messages in the search.  There is a lot more to this and the google 
group is a good place to come up to speed.

b) GMail tags allow the *recipient* to apply their own separate 
assessment of the value of the message to them.  For many this message 
may well have the Gmail tag "trash" but I wouldn't tag it so in the 
tagline :-)  So GMail tags are complementary to TagTalk tags as the 
GMail tags are recipient-intent-expressing while the TagTalk tags are 
sender-intent-expressing.  The TagTalk tags are optional and if the 
sender sees no value in tagging them they don't.  Senders who wish their 
content to be found in a specific context will/may tag their messages in 
that context but not others.  This brings up the issue of spam - also 
thrashed out on the googlegroups list, pl. see it there.

Re: work vs benefit - if you don't see the benefit you won't find it 
worthwhile.  At TagCamp there were some who saw the benefit immediately, 
some who saw it after discussion and some who remain skeptical and/or 
strongly opposed.  So we'll see in time whetehr enough people find it 
beneficial.  At least on list archives, I am betting, people will.


Nitin Borwankar.





Jeremy Dunck wrote:

>Tags: rainonparade tagcamp  ;-)
>
>On 11/7/05, Nitin Borwankar <nitin at borwankar.com> wrote:
>  
>
>>...To be successful an app must give the user benefit with
>>minimum work and the group benefit should just fall out of that for
>>free.   Del and to some extent Flickr seem to fit into that model.
>>
>>    
>>
>...
>  
>
>>a) a  meme - tag your email on the first line with Tags:  .....  pass it on
>>   in future this helps search email on list archives far better than
>>using the subject line or even your inbox in future when Tag search is
>>available. This kind of tag tags content as the sender intended it to be
>>tagged.  GMail tags it as the recipient wants to tag it - these are
>>complementary and different - you may tag this email -"reference" or
>>"trash" which is your view of the
>>same data.  Start tagging email and make it more useful to the receiver.
>>    
>>
>
>Not to be a drag, but how is that better than a descriptive subject
>line?  The concatenation of words to form an effective keyword?  I
>think tags work when there are enough different contributors so that
>the (inherent) variety of tag choices starts overlapping anyway.
>
>Also, without the list of already-used tags at hand, tag choices will
>be uninformed-- again, making it less useful for a small group.
>
>And to your first take-away, how does benefit me in an obvious and
>immediate way?  :)
>  
>