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Amazon Tries Its Hand at Tagging
Kailash Nadh writes "Amazon has formed a 'tags team' and has begun using tags on some pages. The idea, apparently, is to slowly experiment with tags and to give users some power over how certain Amazon products - books, for example - are categorized." From the article: "Ultimately, this is interesting because it may well prove to be the most visible example of a company incorporating tags as a way to bring order to information. Outfits like Flickr are big and have tremendous followings, but nothing compared to Amazon's. And if Amazon can make a go of tagging, that may finally be the tipping point that makes the technology something every Tom, Dick and Harry knows about."
One thing that irritates me about Amazon is that it will not tell you which book comes next in a series. If you've read book one, and want to buy books two and three, you generally have to look up the order elsewhere first. Hopefully people will start adding this information.
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Its nice that the author assumes we know what tags are. It creates an article that only people who know whats going on already understand. Otherwise you go tag? What kind of tag?
:-)
Parent Post Tags: clueless "karma whore" "obvious question"
Seriously though, tags are user-provided categorization (including multiple "categorizations" given that you can apply multiple tags) of content. e.g. Search on Flickr for all photos that are in the union of the tags Toronto and Girl and you'll get photos that have those two tags. The same concept applies to delicious. This is the so-called folksonomy in action, where us lowly serfs categorization content, rather than "the man" in a taxonomy like Yahoo.
However the tag thing is going way too far (as are most "Web 2.0" things) - tags are useful in the absence of a superior classification system. For instance we tag photos in Flickr only because the system can't, thus far, determine what the photo is about mechanically. If it could automatically classify photos, then this folksonomy would prove terribly dated, unreliable, and inaccurate. Look at Google - what is better: The META keywords technique of before, or actually contextually placing each page based upon its actual content?
From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tags): "Tags are pieces of information separate from, but related to, an object. In the practice of collaborative categorization using freely chosen keywords, tags are descriptors that individuals assign to objects."
seathunter
I posted a screenshot and a few comments to my weblog on this when I noticed it on some of my Amazon sessions last week... Link, if you want to see the screenshot
Amazon does use your ratings to improve the recommendations it makes to you.
-- this is not a sig
I recently started using Yahoo's My Web 2.0. It makes use of Tags to categorize "Bookmarks".
I think Tags are a great technology to categorize things into multiple categories. This was previously difficult to do with folders, or priorities. By using tags you can assign both the subject of the item, the source of the item, and the author without having to create specific fields for each of these categories.
I have started to do this with Yahoo's My Web. If I find an interesting Slashdot article I will tag it with a category and add a tag for Slashdot. This was previously not possible with favorites. Using favorits I could only categorize items to a category (even when I used sub folders).
Some of you might say that Del.icio.us has been doing this for some time. Well I became aware of the technology through the powerful Yahoo toolbar.
its like wikipedia - you ad what you know, and benefit from what other people have added.
explaining why feedback from others might be useful to you is difficult, because it should already be obvious.
I'm on of the few who dispute the economic equilibrium theory. As an Austrian economist, I hold a stronger belief in Mises' evenly rotating economy (ERE). Reading any writings on time preference helps dispel the thought behind EE.
Since presumably Amazon is already pricing the product at the optimal point
This is a bad presumption. My record store sold everything at keystone (100% over cost). Most Amazon prices were 20%. Some small sites sold at 5%.
. But my point is- the consumer isn't going to benefit.
Correct me if I'm wrong?
The selling price of a product wil always seek out its cost now that the Internet cuts of so many middle men. In some direct markets (writing, music recording, etc) I think the artist has to sell direct. Other items (hard goods) will definitely come down in price as profits get chased to near zero.
In both situations you have the consumer paying less, leaving them with more money to spend on other things. Yet if the retailers fail, the consumer's job might lose its customers. The new circle of economical life will be interesting!
The cool thing about tagging is that it is allowing the unwashed masses to categorize stuff. It sort of casts aside the idea of a rigid heirarchy of categories, and uses a "free association" style of categorization.
I think it kind of remains to be seen how useful this will be in aiding people's shopping, especially if you're looking for something specific. Still, I think it's a great idea to harness free manpower from the populace to perform tasks that are difficult for a computer to do unaided.
Sure, you could argue that people have little incentive to tag on Amazon, but then you could make the same argument for writing reviews, rating a product, or making recommendation lists - yet thousands of people do it every day. One of the great things about the 'net is that it is one of the few remaining places in life that you occasionally witness a little altruism.
Having experience with the "Not Interested" button, it is not factored into your preferences. I have to do this for books as well, as after buying the hardcover they like to recommend the paperback.
common sense: noun
What those who are ignorant of the subject matter think; usually wrong.
Amazon ... [has] little to no incentive for me to rate a product or provide any feedback.... However, i use the Netflix rating system extensively, because they use my ratings to provide feedback on what new movies I might like, and the system actually works. How can Amazon incentivize people to tag??
By using your ratings to provide feedback on what new books you might like. And yes, the system actually works.