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Why Folksonomies?

The tag line "life is in the " has stuck with me since my blogger days. Along the way many people have asked about its origin, and just 'what the heck does it mean?'. So here's a little explanation.

My highschool library had a subscription to Wired Magazine. That subscription is of no doubt responsible many of the likes and dislikes that I have today. Laugh now if you want, but the cover stories were very cool then. From their Moby article to String Theory they had it, and I liked it. A lot. I even enjoyed the Warhol look their covers had up until '98.

Anyway, I can remember reading an article (could this be it?) that dealt with the brand-new tagging fad that was sweeping the internet. Tags were a way to add value to something, tags were details, tags are like folksonomies. Folksonomies are not-for the last time-old sayings, they are details! Life is in details. And there you have it, a breif history of my blogs tag line(pun intended).

Ironically that Wired article may have changed the meaning of the word slightly. Some purists (either web, or grammatical, or both) say that tags are not folksonomies, although the two have effectively become synonyms in the last couple years.