{"id":106,"date":"2008-06-25T14:24:20","date_gmt":"2008-06-25T19:24:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/haleyai.com\/wordpress\/2008\/06\/25\/if-you-tag-like-me-zigtag-is-it\/"},"modified":"2018-07-23T09:26:27","modified_gmt":"2018-07-23T14:26:27","slug":"if-you-tag-like-me-zigtag-is-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/haleyai.com\/wordpress\/2008\/06\/25\/if-you-tag-like-me-zigtag-is-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Zigtag for social semantic tagging"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"image\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I started to use Radar Networks\u2019 Twine at the invitation of CEO Nova Spivak after writing this<\/a> earlier this year (also see this<\/a>). 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\u00a0 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!)<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 That may not sound fair – I believe that there are semantics in the back room, but that\u2019s how it felt and it’s still the way it looks.\u00a0 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!\u00a0 (I ultimately sacrificed popup blockers, but the process still seems laborious compared to other alternatives.)<\/p>\n

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 \u201cwords\u201d.\u00a0 They also provide tools for managing tags that allow you to move smoothly and incrementally from a folksonomic to a more semantic approach.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The key to the semantic approach for Zigtag is that shared tags are just that – they are more precise than strings.\u00a0 They are not only words – they have definitions.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, like Twine, Zigtag’s ontological model remains hidden.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

My initial experience with Zigtag resulted in immediate jubilation.\u00a0 The Firefox plug-in works for me.\u00a0 It lets me type in tags with nice completion and recommendations from the tags that others have defined.\u00a0 Within 15 minutes I was writing to compliment Zigtag on a practical, elegant approach to the semantic bookmarking problem.\u00a0 I liked it much better than Twine right off the bat – and despite its book-market, I like Twine a lot!\u00a0 Within a few minutes I had an email from their founder, Reg Cheramy.\u00a0 An hour later we were talking.\u00a0 We talked about his early meeting with Michael Arrington<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 If you go to Zigtag the web site<\/a>, you can find groups to join, but unlike Twine’s web site, Zigtag does not recommend groups for you based on your interests.\u00a0 I’m not sure this is a problem, though.\u00a0 Recommendations can be distracting.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

I’m not too concerned with recommendations, even of content, so I cannot comment on Zigtag versus Twine on that front.\u00a0 Generally, there is plenty of RSS and recommendation noise to go around.\u00a0 I prefer the linked approach to finding information rather than searching and I don’t expect recommendations to become excellent in the near term.\u00a0 For more on this, you might want to check out the recent news\u00a0 about Vulcan’s EVRI investment at Webware<\/a> or ReadWriteWeb<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I like to use Zigtag from the sidebar in Firefox.\u00a0 Actually, I owe Reg additional thanks for, in effect, causing me to abandon Internet Explorer for Firefox.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I use it primarily to organize my bookmarks semantically and across machines.\u00a0 For those that want to do the same, you might also be interested in Mitch Kapor’s Foxmarks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I’m fine with finding groups on my own and I like seeing people and what they tend to tag, too.\u00a0 Now that I know they are available on the web site, though, I want them in the sidebar.\u00a0\u00a0 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).\u00a0 It would be nice, for example,\u00a0 to see groups and people organized along with bookmarks according to how heavily they use tags as I pivot through various facets.<\/p>\n

So, on a feature basis, I like Zigtag more than Twine for two primary reasons:<\/p>\n

    \n
  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.<\/li>\n
  2. Zigtag emphasizes and leverages shared tagging of tags that have clearly documented interpretations\u00a0 Twine is too folksonomic.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The picture shown in this post shows that Zigtag already “knows” a lot about semantics.\u00a0 Part of the reason is that they must have a roomful of people watching for\u00a0 tags that people enter that are not defined.\u00a0 Quite a few of the tags I’ve added have become defined within hours (sometimes minutes) of when I enter them.\u00a0 We’ll see how this scales up, but I like it – a lot.<\/p>\n

    The key question for both these sites is:<\/p>\n

    Are you going to share your ontology?\u00a0 If not, why not?\u00a0 If so, when or why not now?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Note that I am not suggesting they should. But if they have a reason not to, it would be nice to understand that.<\/p>\n

    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.\u00a0 That’s how it looks at Twine today.<\/p>\n

    Zigtag exports my bookmarks.\u00a0 I can get them from or over to Delicious, no problem.\u00a0 But I want their semantics, too.\u00a0 I would really appreciate preservation of the text, preferably the semantics of my tags.\u00a0 Perhaps if my bookmarks were simply output as an OWL referencing their ontology?\u00a0 At least then I could move without losing the effort that I have put into them, whether folksonomic or semantic.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

    The background issue of data portability, for bookmarks, social networks, and other personal profile data is huge.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    If I had OWL export and an open ontology, I would be less worried about my investment in Zigtag or Twine.\u00a0 Consider Techcrunch’s recent comments<\/a>:<\/p>\n

    Zigtag\u2019s biggest obstacle is the slew of other social bookmarking sites already available (…<\/a>). 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    It’s hard to argue with the first sentence, but the second seems harsh.\u00a0 Twine is getting credit that it may not deserve.\u00a0 Also, Zigtag recommends tags, too.\u00a0 But the third sentence is a problem for Zigtag as well as Twine, although the latter benefits from superior PR.<\/p>\n

    Another question, of course, is how Zigtag and Twine will fare once they try to make money.\u00a0 Radar Networks has stated that Twine will start running ads by the end of the year.\u00a0 Zigtag has made no public announcements.\u00a0 Delicious selectively advertises (e.g., on search pages), perhaps to feed intelligence to Yahoo’s advertising network.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 If so, this will hold down valuations and slow innovation.\u00a0 We’ll see, but obviously, I hope not..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I started to use Radar Networks\u2019 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\u00a0 tedious to … <\/p>\n

    Continue reading “Zigtag for social semantic tagging”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,22,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ontology","category-semantic-web","category-social-networks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/haleyai.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/haleyai.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/haleyai.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/haleyai.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/haleyai.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/haleyai.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1541,"href":"http:\/\/haleyai.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106\/revisions\/1541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/haleyai.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/haleyai.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/haleyai.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}