Tagging: Can user-generated content improve our services?

Issue title: Web 2.0 and Official Statistics

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Šnuderl, Katja

Affiliations: Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia, Ljubljana, Slovenia. E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract: A couple of years ago there was a lot of discussion about how to improve search engines on the statistical websites. We are still struggling to make them better. On the other hand, in the last few years user-generated content on the internet, with impressive growth of Web 2.0 tools and services, introduced not only user-generated content, but also user-defined classification of items. The so called "folksonomy" introduced a new, complementary way of classifying items, significantly different from the pre-defined, authoritative taxonomies. Folksonomy is a result of tagging. In applications like YouTube (video clip database), Flickr (picture database), SlideShare (presentation database), blogs and others, users attach one or more words (tags) to every object in the database. Tags support search and aggregation lists. It takes just one step to move from entering search keywords ourselves, using all of our knowledge, experiences and intuition in order to tailor the search results to user needs, to allowing our own users to enter tags themselves. This step creates a paradigm shift, exactly the same one as has turned Web 2.0 applications into a big success: Users – not producers – control the way they find and use information. By allowing users to enter tags we can actually allow users to help themselves by helping us.

Keywords: Search, tag, tagging, folksonomy, Web 2.0

Journal: Statistical Journal of the IAOS, vol. 25, no. 3-4, pp. 125-132, 2008