Tagzania is a Google Maps hack

that let’s you create tagged locations anywhere in the world, and surf

other user-tagged meatspace locales based on common tags. For example,

the burrito tag will take you to every noted burrito joint in

the system. So far, that’s one, but you see the potential. Me, I’ll

probably tag good comic book shops. I’m betting this one is going to be

very useful as a secondary open API widget.

Tagsurf is a new message board with no underlying category structure. There are no forums, only tags.

It allows the taxonomy and ontology to evolve based on usage. We’ve

toyed with the same idea around here, though there are some legacy

issues that would probably prevent it in the near term.

As far as what we are going to do, well, here’s a quick heads-up: we’re going to retroactively tag.

We’re playing with some very sophisticated natural language extractor

tech, and we’re probably going to use it to go back and attach tags to

all our old content, so that Discussions and Tech Q&A that were

started well before we allowed tagging will show up in tag searches.

We’ll also add articles and downloads to the tag results page. The

trick is distinguishing between user-generated tags, system-generated

tags, and editorial tags (if necessary). We’ll probably do that by

color.

Big plans afoot. Can’t ignore the tagging phenomenon.