What does folksonomy mean

Term of the Day. Best of Techopedia weekly. News and Special Offers occasional. Techopedia Explains Folksonomy. What Does Folksonomy Mean? Techopedia Explains Folksonomy Derived from "folk" and "taxonomy," folksonomy is a common feature of most social media and Web 2.

It creates a common and shared vocabulary of related terms or keywords with each unique type of content. It is opposed to taxonomy which uses well defined classification schemes and categories.

Whereas folksonomy is informal and voluntary, taxonomy is formal and comprehensively structured. A taxonomy is a hierarchical data structure whose purpose is to classify elements of a given domain: nature, science, knowledge, and so forth.

A collection of tags terms to describe objects of a domain; these are created by a community and not as taxonomies, which are created by experts of a domain. A fusion of the words folks and taxonomy. It is a practice and method of collaboratively creating and managing tags to annotate and categorize all kinds of Web resources. Learn more in: Social Tagging: Properties and Applications.

A combination of folk and taxonomy. Collaboration from different users to apply labels, usually online such as in a forum. Learn more in: Multi-Label Classification.

A system of classifying and organizing online content into different categories through metadata or electronic tagging created by users. Learn more in: Metaliteracy and Multiple Literacies. It is a collaboratively generated taxonomic structure of Web pages, media like hyperlinks, images and movies using open-ended labels called tags. Folksonomies make information increasingly easy to search, discover and navigate over time.

Folksonomies can be described as an ad hoc information management structure that acquires its entire structure through the context created by descriptive contributions from an interested community. A folksonomy is a user-created taxonomy used to categorize information. Folksonomies rely on single word tags assigned by users to create context and establish the value of information.

An indexing method open for users to apply freely chosen index terms. A set of terms generated by the collective action of an online community where users tag information or objects using their own terms or the terms recommended by others. Learn more in: Knowledge Dissemination in Portals.

Also known as collaborative tagging and social classification, folksonomies make it possible to categorize and annotate content using tags keywords and to provide the capabilities to associate tags with individuals.

Anybody can add whatever hashtags they want. The first example is broad taxonomy , meaning it can apply to a lot of different types of content. This website is a classic example of folksonomy, although the website is now defunct. It was a social bookmarking site , meaning you could bookmark websites you found interesting and then share them. Each user could tag their bookmarked websites with whatever words they liked. Then, if you wanted to find articles about a certain topic, you could simply type in the tag you were looking for to pull up a list of recent bookmarks with that tag.

Photo sharing community Flickr was an early adopter of using folksonomy by using tags. Users can upload their photos and then add the tags they want to describe them. Once the photos are uploaded, other users can add tags, too. You can also tag a photo with a location. Their website highlights tags that are currently trending, as well as dedicates a section to the most popular tags of all time. Although folksonomy does have lots of uses for helping users find fun information they like on social media sites and Flickr, it can also be used for more serious ventures - such as helping medical services improve.

Do not confuse folksonomies with taxonomies. Folksonomies structure content via user tags; taxonomies are classifications defined by more formal methods that do not necessarily include user-generated tags and rarely are viewed as similar. Register for Webinar. Join your peers for the unveiling of the latest insights at Gartner conferences. Expert insights and strategies to address your priorities and solve your most pressing challenges.

Information Technology Gartner Glossary. Folksonomies Social Tagging.