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Jun 18, 2009 4:54am
people clouds
Delicious has a related-tags feature that I've been greatly enjoying since Rabble told me I should probably tag my links. Normally, the list of related tags is designed to suss out content, but I've been using people-tags in addition to topic tags. If I get a link from someone, I tag it with via:username. If I post a link about someone I know, I tag it with re:username. Related tags gives an interesting view on some of the folks I follow most closely.
I've only been conscientiously tagging my links for a few months, but already I'm starting to get a clear picture of the kinds of material I get from my friends. I love the idea that a nice stick-and-rock diagram can be made to sum up the specific expertise of people I know, and the topics I look for from each of them.
First though, I want to talk about how everyone I know is doing awesome shit. A quick look at related tags for this one shows who they are and what they're doing: maps, design, code, stuff about cities and paper, and a little cluster of Brits near the top. That group of three re:'s happens to be the Really Interesting Group:
Looking just at links about Russell, you can see his co-conspirator Ben right at the top, a long with a short list of what they're thinking about: printing and newspapers and things that friends do on the internet:
Aaron is all about the papernet in real life, but the things I really follow from his postings are the Python code libraries for doing cloudy stuff with maps:
Zachary Johnson, whom I've never met, is all about maps and cartography:
My brother Zak, on the other hand, is a primary source of weird animated video:
Fred meanwhile is Mr. Baltimore architect, and as often as not I repost things he writes himself:
Finally, top Oakland blogger V Smoothe is all about local Oakland business:
Do you tag your links like this? Does it help you develop a sense for those in your circle who are go-to people for certain topics? Does it help you get through your daily reading to know what certain people are best at? Don't you wish that Delicious would let you check your own name for the hive-mind consensus about what you're good for?
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Comments (4)
Yesyes. We've talked a little bit about featurizing or otherwise encouraging "via" tags - see http://onemorebug.com/bookmarklets/via.html for some history. I like checking http://delicious.com/tag/via%3Abritta sometimes (ok frequently) to find out what bookmarks people have saved from me. It feels similar to checking my Flickr recent activity for favorites and comments from friends - just a nice kind of positive feedback. I think it's also fun to look at the related tags for my "for:" tags. I apparently send my little sister a lot of links about Los Angeles and gender, I send Preoccupations links about learning and games, and I send my real-life friends links about recipes and sweets. One more side-effect of people tagging: sorted by count, my list of "via" tags lets me see who I save the most links from, which is one way to decide who I should be paying attention to when I look at my Network.
Posted by Britta on Friday, June 19 2009 7:03am UTC
"Mr. Baltimore Architect"! I'm going to update my business cards right now, thanks, Mike.
Posted by Fred on Friday, June 19 2009 7:21pm UTC
Posted by on Tuesday, June 23 2009 7:04am UTC
reply tom email for offer join venture business for deal concept development business#632=9847328
Posted by Sergio C. Adino on Tuesday, June 23 2009 7:06am UTC
Sorry, no new comments on old posts.