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So after talking with Dr. C about my project, I think I’ve finally got it. I’m going to explore taxonomy vs. folksonomy, specifically, tagging on delicious.com and how tagging organizes the web. Bush mentions in his essay the idea of sharing associative trails. To extend the metaphor, you took a walk in the woods and marked your trail. Now imagine that other people also walked in those same woods and marked the trail as well. You can then explore their trail and they can explore yours. Sharing the trail leads to new discovery and a learning journey. So naturally, you are wondering: how is social bookmarking a learning process? The learning I am referring to is not the journey on the trail, but something much more subtle and yet more powerful. I’m talking about the act of tagging. You may think it is simple, and in a way it is, but tagging is more than just a keyword, it is a connection, both a mental linking and a physical hyperlink. When you research and play on the internet, it is a matter of individual discovery. You are working alone, skipping along the trail by yourself, basket of berries in hand. But as soon as you decide to tag a website, other people become involved. One of the best features of delicious.com is the patterns in the trial. When you tag a website, delicious has a spot for you to write your own tag. A word that shows the significance or relevance of the website to you. But it also includes popular and recommended tags. These are more than just suggestions. These tags show the relevance and significance of that same website both to other people and to you. For example, you the blog of Jon Udell and decide to tag it “blog”. Then you look at the other tags that delicious suggests. You see technology, web2.0, blog, microsoft, programming, etc. Now the website becomes much more to you than just “blog”. You can see how other people view it; and can explore the idea what the blog is about, who Jon Udell is, what he does. You see web2.0 and think: we talked about that in class. You google web2.0 and the research process starts all over again. Then you tag a new site and new ideas form. It’s infinite and yet organized.