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Analysis of LibraryThing vs. Amazon Tagging Analysis

I have posted my Breaking Down LibraryThing vs. Amazon Tagging Analysis over at Personal InfoCloud. I have spent a lot of time analyzing what Amazon is doing with tagging over the past 16 months. Much of it was missed, but that was not the disappointing bit in the analysis. Most of the comparisons being made were really apples to oranges.

At some point I will write-up an analysis of what Amazon is doing well (some things they are doing brilliantly) and where it has yet to really take advantage of what they have. This will likely have to be broken in to a series as my the two impromptu presentations on the subject have been about an hour long (yes, there is that much there), not including the background set up bits.

I have been including a highlevel view of Amazon tagging in my normally full tagging/folksonomy presentation for the last year or so as there are valuable examples in what is there and their iterations.

Ma.Del Tagging Bookmarklet

Out of frustration with Yahoo MyWeb no longer surfaces results in Yahoo Search, which made Yahoo Search much better for me than any other web search. Now that this is no long functioning and there is no response as to if or when it will return I am back to Google and Microsoft Live Search (the relevancy is better for me on many things). But, this change also removes the value of MyWeb and this has me looking back to Ma.gnolia (also am a huge fan of Raw Sugar and their facets, but that is another longer post).

New Tagging Combo Bookmarklet

When I became a fan of MyWeb I used some glue to make Del.icio.us and MyWeb Combo Bookmarklet.

So now I have done the same for Ma.gnolia and del.icio.us with the Ma.Del Marklet (drag to bookmark bar in FireFox and Safari only). This was built using the Ma.gnolia bookmarklet Ma.rker Mini as its base.

Life Data Streams Bubbling

Emily Chang's post about her My Data Stream brought back memories from a ton of conversations last year. I captured a few of these ideas in a relatively short Life Data Stream post over at Personal InfoCloud, which has comments turned on.

You may want to take a look at TechMeme for related posts.

Cuban Clocks and Music Long Tail Discovery

The last two trips to San Francisco I have heard a latin version of Coldplay's Clocks on KFOG and it really intrigued me. This last trip I was in the car for four songs and one of them was Coldplay's Clocks by the Cuban All Stars. I have been trying to track this track down since first hearing, but am not having great luck. This continually happens when I listen to KFOG, which is about the only regular radio station I will listen to (I much prefer XM Radio for is lack of advertising and blathering idiots spouting off while playing overplayed songs that have little merit.

What I like about this version of Clocks by the Cuban All Stars (I have seen the dashboard metadata list it as Ibrahim Ferrer, but it has not been described as such by the DJs on KFOG). This is where my music recommendations break. But, some digging on the KFOG website points me to Rhythms Del Mundo as the source (but their Flash site seems horribly broken in all browsers as none of the links work). I have found the album on iTunes, but only a partial listing and none of the physical music store options have this in stock as it is not mainstream enough (how I miss Tower).

This all seems like far more work that should be needed. But, not if one has even slightly long tail musical interests. I had a wonderful discussion along these lines wish Cory from IODA about this and the lack of really good long tail discovery systems.

I use Last.fm to discover new things from friend#039;s lists, but the Last.fm neighbor recommendations seem to only work on more mainstream interests (Pandora really falls off on the long tail for me). Now if KFOG put their play list in KFOG, it would help greatly and I would add them to my friend list (or I could move back home to the San Francisco Bay Area).

Static Folksonomy Definition Posted

After many requests, mostly from academics wanting a place to point their cite, I have written and posted a static Folksonomy page. This page may get some minor edits in the next day or so, but it is set. This page will not change, nor be impacted by any change to the blogging software (still my own hand-rolled tool from 2001).

You are now free to quote and point.

Yes, this took to long to put in place. It took a few requests in the past three weeks to put it higher up on the priority list.

Stikkit Adds an API

Stikkit has finally added an API for Stikkit. This makes me quite happy. Stikkit has great ease of information entry and it is perfect for adding annotations to web-based information.

Stikkit is My In-line Web Triage

I have been using Stikkit, from the bookmarklet, as my in-line web information triage. If I find an event or something I want to come back to latter (other than to read and bookmark) I pop that information into Stikkit. Most often it is to remind me of deadlines, events, company information, etc. I open the Stikkit bookmarklet and add the information. The date information I add is dumped into my Stikkit calendar, names and addresses are put into the Stikkit address book, and I can tag them for context for easier retrival.

Now with the addition of the API Stikkit is now easy to retrieve a vCard, ical, or other standard data format I can drop into my tools I normally aggregate similar information. I do not need to refer back to Stikkit to copy and paste (or worse mis-type) into my work apps.

I can also publish information from my preferred central data stores to Stikkit so I have web access to events, to dos, names and addresses, etc. From Stikkit I can then share the information with only those I want to share that information with.

Stikkit is growing to be a nice piece for microcontent tracking in my Personal InfoCloud.

Pew Research on Tagging

Lee Ranie of the Pew Internet and American Life Project announced the release of Pew Internet Project Report on Tagging in America. The report also includes an extensive interview with David Weinberger on the subject of tagging. The most interesting parts of this report at the percentages of people in America who tag (includes those who add categories). Based on their survey, which randomly selected and spoke to 2,373 adults, 28% of Americans online have added tags or categories. The survey found 7% of the respondents tag/categorize daily.

I am really happy with the report as it looks at the numbers from a use perspective. Up to this point I have been using tagging service provider numbers (few are made public) along with Alexa hit reports across many services and took that total and divided by the Neilsen report number of total people on the web (approximately 750 million people). This approach provided about .85% of all the people on the web are tagging (does not include tagging on blogs as that is more ad hoc categories, but that is a long post to explain or done over a beer or two).

The difference between the percentages in the Pew report and the numbers I backed into is the Pew is just an American view and mine was looking at things globally. Pew looks at tags and categories and many systems have categories. I am really comfortable with the daily number of 7% on the web are tagging/categorizing and I will likely use that number in future presentations. The 28% number is really surprising, but for one time use it is accurate. This represents a much larger user base than I thought, but is also includes categories with tagging.

Separating Tagging and Categories

The Pew Report on Tagging combines categories and tagging. While optimally it would be great to separate the two out, explaining the difference between the two to a regular person (non-geek) in America will be difficult. Asking if somebody has used certain functionality on a service or one of the 130 or so social bookmarking tools or the many hundreds of products that include tagging will negatively impact the results. The terms tagging and categories combined for a research question make for a question that is more easily answered yes or no.

The Pew Report provides a starting place for future research, hopefully delving into the subject with a little more clarity, where tagging and categories are separated.

Tagging and Race

If one looks at tagging as a means to refind information and looks at tagging as adding context by adding a person's own vocabulary and social terminology as one of the tools of tagging then looking at various social groups is a simple way to start to validate this (a much better approach is to ascertain why somebody is adding a tag). One simple way to look at different social structures is race. The inclusion of the break down of who tags by race can provide a good argument that people who tag are adding missing language terms, if the assumption is made that the content is missing metadata or is provided by somebody not of that race.

The Pew Report indicates the following tagging breakdown by race:

• 26% of White, non-Hispanics
• 36% of Black, non-Hispanic
• 33% of English-speaking Hispanic

These higher numbers of people tagging who are not white seems to support the idea that those whose vocabulary and terminology is not represented will tag to ease their refinding the information. When things are in familiar terms they are easier to find and having the ability to tag from one's own context eases refindability. The Report does not dive into this and it is a really good subject for future research.

[I initially posted this at Personal InfoCloud :: Pew Research on Tagging, which has comments open

Lessons in Identity

There is much consternation and gnashing of teeth today over the Flickr requiring a Yahoo! login from here forward, it has even made it to the BBC - Flickr to require Yahoo usernames. One of the Flickr co-founders, Stewart Butterfield, provided rationale that would have been a little more helpful up front. The reasons from Stewart are good, but are not solid value propositions for many.

Identity Lessons

There are some insanely important lessons in this dust-up. These lessons revolve around product versus mega-brand/mega-corporation; personal management of identity; and brand trust.

Product Brand versus Mega Brand

One of the primary issues in the Flickr and Yahoo! identity merging involves the love of Flickr the brand and what is stands for in contrast to the perception of the Yahoo!. Flickr was a feisty independent product that innovated the snot out of the web and bent the web to its will to create a better experience for real people. Yahoo is seen as a slow mega corporation that, up until recently, could not sort out how to build for the web beyond 1999. Much of the change in Yahoo is credited to the Flickr team and some others like Bradley Horowitz.

The change in Yahoo! has been really slow as it is a really large company. It seems to be moving in a positive direction with the changes to Yahoo! Mail (came from buying another company who got things right) and the new Yahoo! front door, but the perception still hangs on. Similar to Microsoft's operating system and software, changes to the corporation are like trying to turn a battleship under full steam forward. It is tough changing inertia of a corporation, as not only is it internal technologies and mindsets, but brand perceptions and the hundreds of millions of user perceptions and experience that are going to go through the change.

Take the hulking beast of Yahoo and pair that with a new product and brand Flickr, which is seen as incredibly nimble and innovative and there is a severe clash in perceptions.

Personal Management of Identity

There are a couple issues that are tied up together in the Flickr and Yahoo branding problem involving identity. First, there is the issue of being personally associated with the brand. There are many people who strongly consider themself a "Flickr" person and it is an association with that brand that makes up a part of their personal identity. Many of the "Flickr" people believe they are part of the small lively and innovative new web that Flickr represents. The conflating of the Flickr brand with the Yahoo! brand for many of the "Flickr" people is schizophrenic as the brands are polar opposites of each other. Yahoo! is trying to move toward the Flickr brand appeal and ideals, but again it is turning that battle ship.

The tying one's personal identity to Yahoo! is very difficult for many "Flickr" people. Even within Yahoo! there are battles between the old core Yahoo! and the new upstarts that are changing the way things have always worked. Unfortunately, with the flood of start-up opportunities the Yahoo employees who embrace the new way forward are the people who are seemingly moving out to test the revived waters of web start-ups. This makes turning the battleship all that much harder from the inside.

Second, is managing the digital identity and having personal control over it. Many people really want to control what is known about them by one entity or across an identity. I know many people who have more than one Yahoo! account so to keep different parts of their personal life separate. They keep e-mail separate from search and photos out of their own personal understanding of privacy. Privacy and personal control of digital identity is something that has a wide variation. This required mixing of identity really breaks essential boundary for people who prefer (mildly or strongly) to keep various parts of the digital lives segregated. Many people do not want to have one-stop shopping for their identity and they really want to control who knows what about them. This wish and desire MUST be grasped, understood, and respected.

Brand Trust

All of this leads to people's trust in a brand. People have different levels of trust with different brands (even if the brands are treating their information and privacy in the same manner). Flickr greatly benefited by being a small company who many of the early members knew the founders and/or developers and this personal connection and trust grew through a network effect. The staff at Flickr was and is very attentive to the Flickr community. This personal connection builds trust.

Yahoo! on the other hand is a corporation that has not had a personal touch for many years, but is working to bridge that gap and better connect with its communities around its many products (some of this works well, but much is neglected and the bond is not there). The brand trust is thinner for a larger organization, particularly around privacy and control over digital identity. Many of the large companies make it really difficult to only have one view of your identity turned on when you log in (myYahoo, Mail, and movie ratings are on and all other portions are not logged in - for example).

Conversely, there are those who would like to use their Yahoo! identity and login for things like OpenID login. Recently, Simon Willison (a recent ex-Yahoo) did just this with idproxy.net. And, yet others would like to use other external to Yahoo! logins to be used as a single sign on. Part of this is single sign on and another part is personal control over what digital parts of one's live are connected. It is a personal understanding of trust and a strong belief for many that this perception of trust MUST be respected.

One approach that should NEVER happen is what Google is doing with Dodgeball. This past two weeks I have been contacted by a few people using Dodgeball (I use this service), which was bought and is owned by Google. I was getting contacted by people who found my Dodgeball account by entering my Gmail identity. The problem is I never connected my Gmail to Dodgeball and was going to drop Dodgeball over the required joining of the identities. Google in this instance flat out failed at protecting my identity and privacy, but it does that regularly (personally believe that Google is not Evil, but they are not competent with privacy and identity, which is closely tied with Evil). Had Yahoo! done this with Flickr it would have been really over the top. [I have introduced people at Google to the Digital Identity Gang to better understand digital identity and privacy issues, which is a great sign of them knowing they need to do much better.]

Conclusion

There are a lot of tangents to identity, brand, and personal association that seem to have been left out of the equation in the Yahoo! and Flickr identity merger. A more mature approach to identity at Yahoo! would not have required Flickr members to change over, as for many the changes to value added by conflating the identities is not of interest to those who have not done so yet. For many of those that are feeling hurt it is part of their personal identity that is bruised and broken. Hopefully, Yahoo! has grasped this lesson and will treat other acquisions (Upcoming, del.icio.us, and particularly My Blog Log (among others)) differently.