Monday, March 19, 2007

Towards a better world...



Why people ignore tagging?

I mean, it's the bloody future of the web, and they just ignore it: either don't tag stuff or they tag it with the slow, non-functional part of their brains.
When I found out about upcoming.org using hCalendars, I thought: oh goodie, gold mine: semantically marked events, free test data for my bsc!!!
BUT (the omnipresent 'but'), when I really started scraping it, I found out that figuring out semantics it's haaaard and misinterpreting standards (or recommendations, not to be so harsh) might be a hobby for some: gorgious abbr-locations, with void titles: I mean title="". Then why the f did you put that location class there in the first place?
And, to get back to the tags (which is the reason of this post)... take a look at the Sun mashup event today... Interesting, is it? BUT how am I suppose to discover it if it isn't tagged at all??? And this is not some mistake of an author, it's a habit (lots of events don't have tags at all).
I wonder, is it because upcoming DOES NOT have a field for tags in the 'add event' form? Hmmm... or because the 'add tag' button is pretty hidden on the event page? (it took me a while to find it. I admit, when I analyzed the tags of the events I was looking at the markup).

So which people are we talking about ignoring tagging? We might be talking as well about the developers: it's them who should realize the importance of tags and make it easier for users to produce tagged content. But since upcoming is 'a Yahoo company', I'm not surprised: it's not their first and personally, I'm expecting more...

If some developers don't realize the importance of semantic markup, maybe users do, and maybe it's us who should start the 'web revolution': your favourite events site does not provide tagging? Report it to the developers, send an email, make a request, state your wish for a better world! The website you upload your pictures to does not tag them? Change it! there are a lot of sites that do! Flood the upcoming mailbox with your requests to a decent tagging process so that next time you would be able to find out about the Sun mashup event...

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

nuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
ce sa intamplat cu porku` eu voiam sa stiu, da-le dreq de taguri, cine nu poate trai fara ele?
de ce nu s-a mai spus nimic despre blondele de la FEAA?!?!
oamenilor nu le pasa de taguri ... ptr dezvoltatori webul e doar o munca, o modalitate de a isi castiga timpul liber.
ptr noobi, conteaza cu atat mai putin ... gsp sa mearga, sa vedem ce a mai facut stelutza si ATAT!
deci... in ceea ce priveste tagurile ... ma intereseaza doar ce s-a intamplat cu parantezele blondei de la FEAA si ce eventuri sunt declarate intre ele, in rest ... who cares?

anca luca said...

@marean (as if there was any doubt)
DON'T get me started about gsp's markup!!!
That was the whole point: no one gives a damn about markup; it was an awareness raising post :)

And, regarding the other thing, it's coming, it's coming, stay tuned ;)

Anonymous said...

yep, bookmarking RULZ !!!

www.digg.com - my favorite
del.icio.us
www.fark.com
www.blinkbits.com
www.connotea.org

And the list could have a couple of kilos :-)

P.S. Despre asta o fost proiectu meu la Bruta :D (Social Bookmarking) ... si o ramas foarte impresionata :)) si eu foarte socat cand a trebuit sa-i explic ce e ala un API !!!!

evalica said...

apropo de evenimente:
http://eventful.com/

unde am gasit si un eveniment pentru suceava: (era si pt iasi)
http://eventful.com/events/E0-001-001599173-2

mi-au placut optiunile: sa adaugi la calendar, sa share, sa creezi altul la fel, etc

mi se pare mult mai dragut decat upcoming.org

anca luca said...

@evalica
Believe it or not, I've been analyzing eventful for the past hour (I only intended 5 minutes but it got me). Indeed it looks good, has lots of cool options, but the markup isn't as good as the looks :). Maybe I'll extend this analysis in future posts or elsewhere...

anca luca said...

@evalica
Oh, I almost forgot: I can't believe I can't add a URL for my event! (and I mean hCalendar's url, not just any link I add in the description)