JOHO - January 28, 2005:
Tags, labels and knowledge

You label a jar of preserves 'Strawberry - Aug. 2005' so you can tell what's in it and whether the green stuff on top is supposed to be there. At Flickr, you tag a digital photo of your jar of preserves 'strawberry jam' so other people can find it. The label has a context: the thing that it's attached to. The tag's context is invisible and detached: It's how you think other people are going to search for it. (As Joshua Schachter, creator of del.icio.us, says, tagging is the inverse of searching.)"