Organizing the Web

One important aspect of social bookmarking is how information is organized. "Web 2.0" has introduced another concept of organizing information, and this is called "folksonomy," which is rooted on the word "folks" which then means "people." Previously, the more traditional taxonomy system classified items by hierarchical categories. Folksonomy, meanwhile, classifies information by tags and keywords. These keywords are not dictated by centralized authorities, but instead defined by the users themselves.

The advantage of folksonomy is that there is no longer one single classification for each item of information. Instead, the users themselves are able to determine how relevant that information is to them, and therefore use that as a means of organizing his or her bookmarks. For instance, news about a Formula 1 racing event used to be classified under "Sports" with taxonomy. With tagging, however, a user can attach several keywords, such as F1, formula 1, Ferrari, and even Michael Schumacher, if the news item is about the race car driver. The user will then be able to retrieve all information on each of these keywords, and whatever item or bookmark is tagged as such will appear.