Deep Zoom

This isn’t new, but I just came across Deep Zoom from MS. It’s based on their Seadragon technology, and it requires Silverlight.

Check out the Hard Rock Cafe collection of memorabilia. Combined with a faceted navigation on the left, you can really move around the items quite quickly. And because these are photos, you immediately see what you are getting. The zoom function is great–you can read the fine print on a document or see scratches on the guitars.

I can also imagine browsing publications, books, and newspapers with this technology, so there’d be application for it in information design and information architecture.

Separate Tags with Commas

Tagging, in general, leverages natural language. You tag as you would normally speak or use language in every-day life. And that’s a strength of tagging–one that makes it popular and scalable and usable and all that good stuff.

Why, then, don’t all tagging system use comma-separated tagging input mechanisms? There is nothing natural about these tags–either in entering them or using them:

• socialnetworking (del.icio.us)
• to-read (del.icio.us)
• notionalbookfestival (flickr)
• newyorkcity (flickr)

Note that I’m complaining that there is no preferred term for these concepts, rather that the form that the systems require people enter tags in have caused people to find workarounds. Namely, entering compound tags (i.e., tags with 2 or more terms) isn’t how people naturally type. That you get multiple forms of tags for “New York City” is fine with me–a Good Thing even. But where there is a workaround, there is surely a fault in the system or workflow.

Consider this: “york” consistently appears in flickr’s top tags tag cloud. Really? Are so many people traveling to the lovely city of York in the UK and posting photos to flickr? Well, no. People are going to New York City and tagging their photos in a way that they would normally type: new <space> york <space> city, instead of the system-required newyorkcity or new_york_city or new-york-city. Here’s any example of a user doing that on flickr.

So, combined with the photos from the city of York that are tagged as such, “york” as a tag on flickr gets boosted up to a top tag.

WordPress does it right: you can simply type like you would an email or blogpost or whatever, using commas to separate compound tags.

itsamysterytomewhywetoleratesuchnon-user-friendly_systemsforenteringtags_whenasimplesolutionis-certainly-just-around-the-corner

Entering tags should always be comma-separated. Punkt.

Veranstaltung in Hamburg, 2009

Aufgrund der positiven Resonanz und zahlreicher Nachfragen veranstaltet NetFlow zwei Workshops mit mir auch in 2009. Die Workshops werden auf Deutsch gehalten.

• 26. Januar 09 – Workshop I: “Prinzipien der Informationsarchitektur“
• 27. Januar 09 – Workshop II: “Elemente des Navigationsdesigns“

Siehe auch den Flyer (PDF 64KB).

Die Teilnehmer Anzahl ist begrenzt. Du kannst dich online anmelden.

Open Shevles Classification

This isn’t exactly new, but I wanted to post on it anyway. Library Thing is trying to get an open-source-like project for classification for to replace Dewey going. It’s called the Open Shelves Classification.

Back in my library days, I might have joined in–but not now. There is a forum for the project on Library Thing, as well as a wiki.

While Ifind the initiative interesting and with some potential, I wonder how they’ll ever arrive at top-level categories or even facts. Good luck to them.