Zigtag for social semantic tagging

I started to use Radar Networks’ Twine at the invitation of CEO Nova Spivak after writing this earlier this year (also see this). I enjoyed it for a while, especially because a lot of technology folks were hooking up with each other, especially the semantic web community, on Twine. But I found it  tedious to work through beta issues and to be bothered with recommendations or news about who was saying or bookmarking things about what. (I should have turned off the emails sooner!)

I was disappointed that Twine was taking an apparently folksonomic approach to tagging. It was as if Radar Networks was riding semantic web buzz without really embracing it openly or sharing the momentum that the invite-only community was investing in.  That may not sound fair – I believe that there are semantics in the back room, but that’s how it felt and it’s still the way it looks.  But probably the worst part is the process that you have to go through to add a bookmark – which is the whole point, of course!  (I ultimately sacrificed popup blockers, but the process still seems laborious compared to other alternatives.)

I stumbled across Zigtag almost accidentally while working for a VC firm with a portfolio of semantic startups. What I like most about Zigtag is that they make it obvious that they are building an ontology of tags and encourage users to select semantic tags (i.e., concepts) rather than folksonomic “words”.  They also provide tools for managing tags that allow you to move smoothly and incrementally from a folksonomic to a more semantic approach.

The key to the semantic approach for Zigtag is that shared tags are just that – they are more precise than strings.  They are not only words – they have definitions.

Unfortunately, like Twine, Zigtag’s ontological model remains hidden.

My initial experience with Zigtag resulted in immediate jubilation.  The Firefox plug-in works for me.  It lets me type in tags with nice completion and recommendations from the tags that others have defined.  Within 15 minutes I was writing to compliment Zigtag on a practical, elegant approach to the semantic bookmarking problem.  I liked it much better than Twine right off the bat – and despite its book-market, I like Twine a lot!  Within a few minutes I had an email from their founder, Reg Cheramy.  An hour later we were talking.  We talked about his early meeting with Michael Arrington, how his work compares to bulletin board or discussion forum emphasis in Twine , how he facilitates semantic tagging given a very large ontology and vocabulary, and so on.

Whether Reg took my advice to emphasize groups more or was already headed in that direction is unclear, but Zigtag now has group functionality that seems as good as (and in some ways better) than Twine’s.  If you go to Zigtag the web site, you can find groups to join, but unlike Twine’s web site, Zigtag does not recommend groups for you based on your interests.  I’m not sure this is a problem, though.  Recommendations can be distracting.  Nonetheless, if people want recommendations for more than content, it would be a simple step for Zigtag given the fact that they already recommend content that others have bookmarked.

I’m not too concerned with recommendations, even of content, so I cannot comment on Zigtag versus Twine on that front.  Generally, there is plenty of RSS and recommendation noise to go around.  I prefer the linked approach to finding information rather than searching and I don’t expect recommendations to become excellent in the near term.  For more on this, you might want to check out the recent news  about Vulcan’s EVRI investment at Webware or ReadWriteWeb.

I like to use Zigtag from the sidebar in Firefox.  Actually, I owe Reg additional thanks for, in effect, causing me to abandon Internet Explorer for Firefox.     I use it primarily to organize my bookmarks semantically and across machines.  For those that want to do the same, you might also be interested in Mitch Kapor’s Foxmarks.

I’m fine with finding groups on my own and I like seeing people and what they tend to tag, too.  Now that I know they are available on the web site, though, I want them in the sidebar.   The fact that they are indirect on the web site, not presented in the sidebar, and not proactively recommended probably explains why there are relatively few (especially compared to Twine).  It would be nice, for example,  to see groups and people organized along with bookmarks according to how heavily they use tags as I pivot through various facets.

So, on a feature basis, I like Zigtag more than Twine for two primary reasons:

1. Zigtag’s Firefox plug-in is a great user interface while Twine’s book-market is awkward in every sense that matters to me.
2. Zigtag emphasizes and leverages shared tagging of tags that have clearly documented interpretations  Twine is too folksonomic.

The picture shown in this post shows that Zigtag already “knows” a lot about semantics.  Part of the reason is that they must have a roomful of people watching for  tags that people enter that are not defined.  Quite a few of the tags I’ve added have become defined within hours (sometimes minutes) of when I enter them.  We’ll see how this scales up, but I like it – a lot.

The key question for both these sites is:

Are you going to share your ontology?  If not, why not?  If so, when or why not now?

Note that I am not suggesting they should. But if they have a reason not to, it would be nice to understand that.

It also would be nice to know whether the effort I expend on either site will be lost if they are acquired or I want to switch.  That’s how it looks at Twine today.

Zigtag exports my bookmarks.  I can get them from or over to Delicious, no problem.  But I want their semantics, too.  I would really appreciate preservation of the text, preferably the semantics of my tags.  Perhaps if my bookmarks were simply output as an OWL referencing their ontology?  At least then I could move without losing the effort that I have put into them, whether folksonomic or semantic.  I also want to know if their ontology is are any good and, if so, I’d appreciate export to OWL so that I could use bookmarks for other purposes that interest me.

The background issue of data portability, for bookmarks, social networks, and other personal profile data is huge.

If I had OWL export and an open ontology, I would be less worried about my investment in Zigtag or Twine.  Consider Techcrunch’s recent comments:

Zigtag’s biggest obstacle is the slew of other social bookmarking sites already available (…). The semantic tagging feature is fairly unique, but its appeal is still untested, especially against automated semantic taggers like Twine. Frankly, a lot of people are just going to stick with the simple but effective Delicious interface.

It’s hard to argue with the first sentence, but the second seems harsh.  Twine is getting credit that it may not deserve.  Also, Zigtag recommends tags, too.  But the third sentence is a problem for Zigtag as well as Twine, although the latter benefits from superior PR.

Another question, of course, is how Zigtag and Twine will fare once they try to make money.  Radar Networks has stated that Twine will start running ads by the end of the year.  Zigtag has made no public announcements.  Delicious selectively advertises (e.g., on search pages), perhaps to feed intelligence to Yahoo’s advertising network.  The advertisements are so selective that the value of other book-marking sites may be limited to the intelligence that they provide to established advertising networks.  If so, this will hold down valuations and slow innovation.  We’ll see, but obviously, I hope not..