There's been an enormous amount of good stuff around about tags and
folksonomies recently, which I've not really had enough time to
interrogate fully. One particularly interesting experiment has been
the Cloudalicious service.
Cloudalicious was apparently inspired by the Grafolicious service which tracks
changes in the rate of bookmarking for any given URL as well as
creating browsable interfaces for getting to grips with tags.
Cloudalicious takes this one stage further - showing how the actual
tags that people use to describe a given URL change over time. This
blurry mess of semantic data is known as a 'Tag Cloud'.
But what do changes in a tag-cloud mean? Probably the most obvious
underlying cause for a change in the words used to describe a site
would be that the site itself has changed. You could probably
use an analysis of the changing tag-cloud to get a handle on what's
happening to the site. That's quite interesting.
After that - or alongside that - another underlying cause could be
a change in the vocabulary around a subject. At a really grand
level, if you can imagine a one hundred year tag-cloud around a gay
novel, then it might start with lots of people using the tag invert, with this gradually
giving way to homosexual, then gay and potentially after that,
queer.
There's a really nice illustration of this on a weblog called P.S.
which has a post called Tagclouds and cultural change. In it, there are a lot of
illustrations of the take-up of the tag 'Ajax'. You could argue this
one in a couple of ways - a new concept emerges and a weblog might
change direction to deal with it. In that case it's just about the
content changing. But for the most part the examples that the article
uses are about specific unchanging individual articles, not whole
weblogs. The vocabulary around the posts is changing, not the
posts themselves. In the following graph from that article, Ajax is
the pale blue line that - over time - becomes the tag of choice for
the article in question:
But there's also a third potential cause for changes in a tag-cloud
over time - that people might approach the very act of tagging
differently - that their understanding of what they're doing might
develop. This is a change in the nature of tagging itself. And this is
what I want to talk about really briefly.
Matt Webb and I
did a fair amount of work around tagging with a project called
Phonetags that I never get time to properly write up. As we were
working on it, we came to realise that each of us had a radically
different understanding of what a tag was. Matt's concept was quite
close to the way tagging is used in del.icio.us - with an individual the
only person who could tag their stuff and with an understanding that
the act of tagging was kind of an act of filing. My understanding was
heavily influenced by Flickr's
approach - which I think is radically different - you can tag other
people's photos for a start, and you're clearly challenged to tag up a
photo with any words that make sense to you. It's less of a filing
model than an annotative one.
When I came to use del.icio.us I approached tagging in the way that
made sense to me from Flickr. So any and all links were covered with
loads of keywords with no thought for how they ought to clump
together. I just tried to describe what the link was about in some
way. Joshua and I had a bit of an argument about the way I was using
it, actually. The browsing interface didn't really suit an approach
that had an enormous number of orphaned tags. You can get a sense of
how out of control it all got with this
visualisation of my tags. At the end of the argument I said to
Joshua that it was almost like he was treating tags as folders. And he
replied, exasperated, that this was exactly what they were. It
was just that now an object could exist comfortably in a number of
folders so you didn't have to enforce an arbitrary heirarchy on your
filing...
So two radically different forms of tagging that really share very
little in common with one another - which leads to the question, is
there room for two different paradigms here (at least) or will there
be some refactoring and adaptation that moves us towards one or other
model?
To help answer this question, here's a representation of the
tag-clouds surrounding my weblog over time (you can see the original
in context on Cloudalicious):
So this basically traces my weblog over the last year. Each
coloured line represents a particular tag - its height on the graph
indicating its 'weight' - how often it is used in relation to the
other tags. Here's where it gets interesting - there's at least one
really significant shift of emphasis that happens over the year,
between the blue and the red lines. This really does look like an
ongoing shift of emphasis in the community of people who have
bookmarked my site. And here's the really interesting bit - the two
tags are almost exactly the same. The blue one is blogs and the
red one is blog. But why such a dramatic shift between the two
tags?
Now of course, this is only one weblog and it's difficult to come
to any significant conclusions based on one example like this. But we
could use it to form a hypothesis for other more technical people to
test elsewhere. So here is that hypothesis - that the shift from
people using blogs to blog represents the increasing dominance of a
Flickr-style paradigm of tagging. Imagine the process of annotating a
weblog - if you tag it with 'blogs' it seems clear that you are adding
it to a collection of some kind. 'Blogs' is clearly the name of a
folder which houses links to weblogs rather than an attempt to
describe the weblog itself. But tagging something with the term
"blog" suggests quite the opposite - to tag a link 'blog' suggests
that I'm attempting to describe the link not as belonging to a bin
labelled 'blogs' but simply as a 'blog' in and of itself. It is my
conjecture, therefore, that the folder metaphor is losing ground and
the keyword one is currently assuming dominance.
To test if this theory is correct - to see if one model of tagging
is becoming dominant over another - should be relatively simple. You
could use tag-stemming to spot
tags with common roots in popular URLs, and then look for significant
changes in their proportionate usage over time. I'd be particularly
interested in tags that described the format of the object on the page
(article vs. articles, quiz vs. quizzes, searchengine vs.
searchengines) rather than the subject (trees, nuclear fission, cats).
If someone was to do this kind of research then I'd be delighted -
because it's those kinds of studies and observances in user behaviour
that allow us to design better interfaces to support these
innovations.
More on the emerging two cultures09/04/2004 05:34 PM Continuing on from yesterday's bit on the emerging two cultures of the
internet, it occurs to me that a major shift has happened. Firewalls,
anti-virus, and anti-malware systems aren't for your own protection
anymore, but for everyone else's benefit instead....
It's clear that that the future of the Unix-style pipeline lies with
Web services. When the XML messages flowing through that pipeline are
also XML documents that users interact with directly, we'll really
start to cook with gas. But a GUI doesn't just present documents, it
also enables us to interact with them. From Mozilla's XUL (XML User
Interface Language) to Macromedia's Flex to Microsoft's XAML, we're
trending toward XML dialects that define those interactions. Where
this might lead is not so clear, but the recently published WSRP (Web
Services for Remote Portals) specification may provide a clue. WSRP,
like the Java portal systems it abstracts, delivers markup fragments
that are nominally HTML, but could potentially be XUL, Flex, or XAML.
It's scary to think about combinations of these, so I'm praying for
convergence. But I like the trend. XML messages in the pipeline, XML
documents carrying data to users, XML definitions of application
behavior. If we're going to blend the two cultures, this is the right
set of ingredients. [Full story at
InfoWorld.com]
My recent stuff has provoked some diametrically opposed reactions.
Responding to this column, Dan Kegel wrote:
Jon, you've been drinking too much XML / web services kool-aid. Only
clueless analysts and those who wish they could program, but can't,
think there's anything novel about "web services". Anything you can do
with XML can be done more simply without it; the standards documents
associated with XML and "web services" are absolutely mind-numbing. In
the meantime, real programmers are getting real work done, and
ignoring the analysts.
...
The emerging two cultures of the internet
The emerging two cultures of the internet09/03/2004 08:29 AM It's the end of the summer, more or less, and like last year, I've
been on an unsubscription frenzy. I have a lot of work to do in the
next few months: keeping up to date with the subjects I...
Ben Hammersley- The emerging two cultures of the internet
benhammersley.com/weblog/2004/09/03/the_emerging_two_cultures_of_th
e_internet.html track this
site | 3 links
Cooking, Seduction And National Cultures
Cooking, Seduction And National Cultures05/16/2004 12:50 AM The Food Of Love: Oh, forget about music already. What
should you cook if you want to woo a lover? According to Lisa
Hilton, it all depends on what nationality (s)he is and what country
you're living in... P.S. Shame on The Observer
for choosing the inflammatory but incidental title I've Never Had
Good Sex With A Vegetarian!
Intel researchers study cultures not circuits
Intel researchers study cultures not circuits05/06/2004 05:29 PM Company anthropologists and psychologists find religion, cultural
differences dictate how people use computer technology.
“In 2003, the US recording industry initiated lawsuits
against its own consumers in an effort to change what some view as a
‘culture of piracy.’ What is this culture of piracy and
what is at stake in trying to change it? In this essay, I take an
ethnographic look at music file sharing, and compare the situation in
the US with Japan. My findings are based on fieldwork in Tokyo, and
surveys and discussions with…
UFOs Collide
UFOs Collide04/05/2005 12:17 PM My last postings have been the boring non-illustrated kind; so here's
a photo Kåre, Janus and I caught last year of two UFOs colliding
in Death Valley! . We were lucky to catch this photo and another one
of eerily human-like aliens from outer space after Kåre and I
had been sitting in the desert for more than an hour taking pictures
of the stars (having fun with the 17-35mm lens on a F3 (wiiiiiide) and
taking digital pictures with...
when gadget bl0gs collide03/08/2004 11:17 PM the important thing, when entering a market with an established
player, is having some sort of differentiation
One dead as two coaches collide
One dead as two coaches collide01/27/2004 03:34 AM One person dies and 41 are injured in a collision between two coaches
on the Yorkshire Wolds.
IBM, Microsoft Collide on Collaboration
IBM, Microsoft Collide on Collaboration02/05/2005 09:20 PM Analysts say the battle could determine which vendor leads the markets
for messaging, which Microsoft has traditionally led, and
collaboration, which IBM has dominated.
Four Police Cars Collide During Exercise (AP)
Four Police Cars Collide During Exercise (AP)09/22/2004 04:27 PM AP - Don't give up the training. Traffic snarled for miles on a
highway in northern England on Wednesday after four police cars
collided with each other and blocked the road, apparently during a
training exercise.
Animation and mobile devices collide
Animation and mobile devices collide02/05/2005 09:10 PM Remember when you were a kid and you learned how to animate something?
You took a notepad and slowly drew pictures on each page, then created
a "flip book" that would animate the drawings until you ran out of
paper. My favorite animation to draw was an Evel Knievel-type
motorcycle jump over several cars that always ended in disaster.
Two Power Brokers Collide in Iraq
Two Power Brokers Collide in Iraq08/21/2004 11:24 AM Moktada al-Sadr has shown how a portly cleric with a dedicated militia
and an artful grasp of Shiite street politics can confront American
power.
Charter Schools and Testing Collide
Charter Schools and Testing Collide08/19/2004 03:19 PM The education policy of the Bush administration is founded on two
pillars: standardized testing and charter schools. However, as
reported in this New York Times article (see also the audio archive at
NPR or nonsubscription coverage at the Boston Globe) , the US
Department of Education's own testing data show that nationwide,
charter schools are, in aggregate, lagging their public counterparts.
Logging and Politics Collide in Idaho
Logging and Politics Collide in Idaho08/08/2004 09:17 PM A Bush administration plan to overturn a Clinton-era ban on building
roads in roadless areas is drawing the usual divisions.
Small Planes Collide in N.J., Killing 5 (AP)
Small Planes Collide in N.J., Killing 5 (AP)08/07/2004 03:39 PM AP - Two small planes collided Saturday morning in New Jersey, killing
all people five aboard and sending one aircraft plunging into the back
yard of a home.
Two Small Planes Collide in New Jersey (AP)
Two Small Planes Collide in New Jersey (AP)08/07/2004 10:19 AM AP - Two small planes collided Saturday morning in New Jersey, killing
at least one person and sending one aircraft plunging into the back
yard of a home.
When games collide with movie makers
When games collide with movie makers07/03/2004 05:30 AM The film industry is becoming more interested in gaming, says Daniel
Etherington of BBC Collective.
Like Particles, 2 Houses of Physics Collide
Like Particles, 2 Houses of Physics Collide01/22/2004 03:19 AM A drama of two renowned laboratories played out at a conference in
Oakland, Calif., over a puff of primordial matter with an otherworldly
name: the quark-gluon plasma.
“With more than 4,000 scientists, including 48 Nobel Prize
winners, having signed a statement opposing the Bush
administration’s use of scientific advice, this election year is
seeing a new development in the uneasy relationship between science
and politics….
Have you heard? It's in the stars, next July we collide with Mars...
Have you heard? It's in the stars, next July we collide with Mars...01/01/2004 01:29 PM A better 2004? A mixed look at what Indian and
Chinese astrologers see for the new year. We're soon to move into the
Chinese year of
the monkey, a symbol of revolution, movement and changes... a
year of more conflict and disharmony in international relationship but
there are good chances of seeing new light and brighter future after
struggles.
But on the brighter(ish) side, Stargazers agree that the coming 12
months cannot fare much worse than the seesaw ride that the world went
through in 2003, dogged by war in Iraq, fluctuating financial markets
and mysterious diseases.
Two Trains Collide in NY During Morning Commute (Reuters)
Two Trains Collide in NY During Morning Commute (Reuters)04/19/2004 08:25 AM Reuters - At least 30 people were injured during
their Monday morning commute when two trains collided in a
tunnel near New York's Pennsylvania station, officials said.
Science, Politics Collide in Election Year (AP)08/14/2004 01:02 PM AP - Last November, President Bush gave physicist Richard Garwin a
medal for his "valuable scientific advice on important questions of
national security." Just three months later, Garwin signed a statement
condemning the Bush administration for misusing, suppressing and
distorting scientific advice.
Economy, Politics Collide for Bush Team (washingtonpost.com)
Economy, Politics Collide for Bush Team (washingtonpost.com)08/07/2004 12:08 AM washingtonpost.com - With job creation stalled, the stock market
sliding and oil prices at record highs, a divided White House is under
pressure to produce an economic policy response for President Bush's
fall reelection campaign, Republican economic advisers said yesterday.
"The Way We Eat Now: Ancient bodies collide with modern technology to produce a flabby, disease-ridden populace
"
It's fun to use google and see what it returns when searching for
'sticky buns' as, well, the imagination is a poor substitute for
reality. When food and skin porn collide it gets fairly ugly pretty
quickly. Sticky buns are likely the source of inspiration for the
Finnish bostonkakku which are served like a pie rather than the
individual buns. One of the guys at work quipped that it is served
this way because you can feed 20 instead of 8 people.
I figured that since I was making dallaspulla that I'd make the
inspiration for texaspulla and bostonkakku so that my test subjects
would know just what they had been missing all these years. :) The
dough is a snap to make even without a mixer and is much easier to
work with than the pulla dough. The only drawback is the time spent
waiting for the dough to rise. With a four-day weekend approaching
where absolutely nothing will be open and we'll likely have crappy
weather given that it's a holiday, what could be better than making a
pan of sticky buns and eating them instead of chocolate eggs? These
are, by far, the best cinnamon rolls I've ever made and my test
subjects consumed them in a shark chum feeding frenzy. Two guys even
asked me for the recipe.
Sticky Buns, a.k.a. caramel rolls or cinnamon rolls
This recipe has four components: the dough that is shaped into buns,
the filling that creates the swirl in the shaped buns, the caramel
glaze that bakes in the bottom of the baking dish along with the buns,
and the pecan topping that garnishes the buns once baked. Although the
ingredient list may look long, note that many ingredients are
repeated. Leftover sticky buns can be wrapped in foil or plastic wrap
and refrigerated for up to 3 days, but they should be warmed through
before serving. They reheat quickly in a microwave oven (for 2 buns,
about 2 minutes at 50 percent power works well); they can also be put
into a 325F/175C-degree oven for about 8 minutes.
Dough
3 large eggs at room temperature
3/4 cup buttermilk (2 dl piima) at room temperature
4 1/4 cups (10,5 dl) unbleached all-purpose flour, plus additional
for dusting work surface
6 tablespoons (85g) unsalted butter, melted and cooled until warm
In bowl of standing mixer, whisk eggs; add buttermilk and whisk to
combine.
Whisk in sugar, salt, and yeast.
Add about 2 cups (5 dl) flour and butter; stir with wooden spoon or
rubber spatula until evenly moistened and combined.
Add all but about 1/4 cup (1/2 dl) remaining flour and knead with
dough hook at low speed 5 minutes.
Check consistency of dough (dough should feel soft and moist but
should not be wet and sticky; add more flour, if necessary); knead at
low speed 5 minutes longer (dough should clear sides of bowl but stick
to bottom).
Turn dough out onto lightly floured work surface; knead by hand
about 1 minute to ensure that dough is uniform (dough should not stick
to work surface during hand kneading; if it does stick, knead in
additional flour 1 tablespoon at a time).
Lightly spray large bowl or plastic container with nonstick cooking
spray. Transfer dough to bowl, spray dough lightly with cooking spray,
then cover bowl tightly with plastic wrap.
Set in warm, draftfree spot until doubled in volume, 2 to 2 1/2
hours.
Caramel Glaze
6 tablespoons or 85g unsalted butter
3/4 cup (1,75 dl) light brown sugar, packed
3 tablespoons corn syrup, light or dark
2 tablespoons heavy cream
1 pinch table salt
Meanwhile, combine all ingredients for glaze in small saucepan.
Cook over medium heat, whisking occasionally, until butter is
melted and mixture is thoroughly combined.
Pour mixture into nonstick metal 13- by 9-inch (33cm x 23cm) baking
dish.
Using rubber spatula, spread mixture to cover surface of baking
dish.
Set baking dish aside.
Cinnamon-Sugar Filling
3/4 cup (1,75 dl) light brown sugar, packed
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 pinch table salt
1 tablespoon or 15g unsalted butter, melted
Raisins (optional)
Combine brown sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and salt in small bowl.
Mix with a fork until thoroughly combined, using fingers to break
up sugar lumps.
Set aside.
To assemble and bake buns:
Turn dough out onto lightly floured work surface.
Gently shape dough into rough rectangle with long side nearest you.
Lightly flour dough and roll to 16-inch x 12-inch (40cm x 30cm)
rectangle.
Brush dough with 1 tablespoon melted butter, leaving 1/2-inch
border along top edge; with butter remaining on brush, brush sides of
baking dish.
Sprinkle filling mixture over dough, leaving 3/4-inch border along
top edge; smooth filling in even layer with your hand, then gently
press mixture into dough to adhere. Add rasins if you desire.
Beginning with long edge nearest you, roll dough into taut
cylinder.
Firmly pinch seam to seal and roll cylinder seam-side down.
Very gently stretch to cylinder of even diameter and 18-inch (45
cm) length; push ends in to create even thickness.
Using a serrated knife and gentle sawing motion, slice cylinder in
half, then slice each half in half again to create evenly sized
quarters.
Slice each quarter evenly into thirds, yielding 12 ~1.5 inch (3,75
cm) buns (end pieces may be slightly smaller).
Arrange buns cut-side down in prepared baking dish.
Cover tightly with plastic wrap and set in warm, draft-free spot
until puffy and pressed against one another, about 1 hour.
Meanwhile, adjust oven rack to lowest position, place pizza stone
(if using) on rack, and heat oven to 350F/175C degrees.
Place baking pan on pizza stone; bake until golden brown and center
of dough registers about 180F/82C degrees on instant-read thermometer,
25 to 30 minutes.
Cool on wire rack 10 minutes; invert onto rimmed baking sheet,
large rectangular platter, or cutting board.
With rubber spatula, scrape any glaze remaining in baking pan onto
buns; let cool while making pecan topping.
Pecan Topping
3 tablespoons or 50g unsalted butter
1/4 cup (.5 dl) light brown sugar, packed
3 tablespoons corn syrup, light or dark
1 pinch table salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract or vanilla sugar
3/4 cup (1,75 dl) pecans or walnuts, toasted in a skillet over
medium heat until fragrant and browned, about 5 minutes, then cooled
and coarsely chopped
Combine butter, brown sugar, corn syrup, and salt in small saucepan
and bring to simmer over medium heat, whisking occasionally to
thoroughly combine.
Off heat, stir in vanilla and pecans until pecans are evenly
coated.
Using soup spoon, pour heaping tablespoon of nuts and topping over
center of each sticky bun.
Continue to cool until sticky buns are warm, 15 to 20 minutes.
Pull apart or use knife to cut apart sticky buns; serve.
Grok Description matches for Two cultures of fauxonomies collide... GrokA matches for Two cultures of fauxonomies collide...
Two cultures of fauxonomies collide...
The following phrases have been identified by the grok system as matching this entry:
