Labels Not Tags, Says Google 284
Ashraf Al Shafaki writes "The word 'tags' is the one in common use on the Web today and is one of the distinctive features of Web 2.0. Ever since Gmail came out, Google has decided to use the term 'label' instead of the term 'tag' despite they are basically the exact same thing and have the exact same function. Why is Google using inconsistent terminology in its products for such an important term? Is there a real difference between a tag and a label?"
what is a tag ? (Score:4, Insightful)
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=define%3A+tag [google.co.uk]
it certainly isnt what we see on blogs and web2.0 sites (except in the source code)
</endtag>
Re:what is a tag ? (Score:5, Funny)
http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=define%3A+t
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-stormin
It depends.... (Score:4, Funny)
If the service is in the Beta phase it's Label. If it's in Alpha, it would be tag.
And if it's in production... well... how would we know?
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No, a 'Label' is a piece of paper or some other tangible medium with information on it that is firmly affixed to an item (like the Dell label on my monitor). A tag is the same thing, but instead of being attached directly on the product it it only partially attached such that it 'hangs off', such as the tag on my matress, or on the ear of the deer in my backyard that the environmentalist relased..
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And if it's in production...
It'll be glossies with "Hello. My Name is" preprinted on them; with your choice of butterflies or ponies.
KFG
Why tags? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why tags? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because those in the web 2.0 world are using a word doesn't mean it's the right word for the mainstream.
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A replacement for "folder" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A replacement for "folder" (Score:4, Informative)
I believe its much more logical to consider folders as categories and subcategories instead of just directories. That's what I do when I store my data, and that's the logic behind my folder names.
Re:A replacement for "folder" (Score:5, Insightful)
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Hard links anyone? They've been around for nearly 40 years.
Hard links don't work across filesystems (or drives, in Windows-speak. or Volumes, in Mac-speak).
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Re:A replacement for "folder" (Score:4, Interesting)
It's a stupid idea. Filing is not about searching blindly in the style of google. Filing is about having a SYSTEM for categorising things, so that you can figure out what categories any given thing belongs in. Once you have such a system, the easiest way to implement that in software? Directories.
Sloppy labels only look good to people who have never had anything resembling a filing system, and instead just lose their documents.
Re:A replacement for "folder" (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's say I make my folder as follows:
Why shouldn't I be able to type in:
And get the same result?
Hierarchies are a horrible way to manage data, because no one "category" is always a subset of another. Pick the more general term here:
Pictures
2006
Christmas
Trip
You can't. Or else it depends on a number of things. Do I take a lot of trips? How many pictures do I take on those trips? Do I only take pictures at Christmas or on trips? And so on.
The only reason hierarchies seem like a good idea is because we've been using them since the birth of file systems, because computers at the time couldn't handle anything more expressive. It's time to move on.
Re:A replacement for "folder" (Score:4, Funny)
The heirarchal structure of the file system was imposed by the Patriarchy. The new paradigm promoted by feminists is to group files and file "containers" into an equal but interconnected web of dependencies where they all sit around in a circle and any user (no scratch that, it sounds so oppressive), a participant, if she feels like it, can learn the community consensus reached by all the other background processes.
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I can think of two reasons.
I'm sure there are better ways to organize files and
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Directories are working just fine. I honestly can't think of a simpler, more effective way for handling massive amounts of files. If somebody wants to throw a harebrained "tag" system on top of t
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LOL. Someone had to re-state the bleeding obvious.
My guess is that people are either lazy, or striving for a new level of ignorance. The grandparent's use of the term "obsolete" to characterise the above is espec
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> directories in the filesystem at all, and there will be labels instead.
Well Palm OS uses similar aproach - you don't sort files into folders but you label them and then list them via label. Usually it works OK. But sometime it is really pain. But at least you still can browse the filesystem (with dirs and files) via additional software.
I think it would be OK to have filesystem with labels/tags and also normaln folder/file functionality if you wish
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i.e.
Example of why a file system should support tags [slashdot.org]
Cheers
--
"Windows: Why it's file system was designed by idiots?".txt
Re:A replacement for "folder" (Score:4, Interesting)
For one, tagging needs to be a lot easier, it's easy to make a folder to drop files into, but there's nothing I've used yet where I can drop items into a "tag folder" to automatically tag them. I think a hybrid system is the way to go, I might have two groups of files that are in folders of the same folder name, but they have different parent folders for a reason, to exclude them from each other, and searching systems usually don't let me take that into account.
Anyway, what I'm saying is that I've had too many circumstances that spelunking folders was easier to do than performing a search and adding the correct exclusions to get what I want, to justify getting rid of the folder system. Maybe what is needed is a nested tagging system, subtags, I don't know, because sometimes a heirarchical system is the most effective way to find something.
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WIth a traditional filesystem you could have links stored in (guess what) another directory where you would organize your access to your organized files. Eventually, you will have a filesystem that manages metadata and you would probably have a 'search folder' that would automatically display all files and folders that match a query, in thi
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Eventually? It's already a reality in OS X using "Smart Folders" (saved searches).
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As to the folder vs directory thing, the different words determine whether you are UI or implementation driven. A folder is a grouping of files (and so is a UI concept), while a directory is a mapping between names and addresses and so is an implementation thing.
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If you would open your home directory and get a list of all files in all folders in it you'd end up with a list with a couple thousand entries, which would be pretty much useless. Getting a regular directory listing and browing from there makes more sense. Also, if you need
google, internet (tagging beta) (Score:5, Funny)
Get it Right, Dammit!
label makes more sense (Score:5, Insightful)
In any case, it's closer to plain English to call them labels. That's what you're doing. If I'm in GMail and I want to indicate that an email is work related it is closer to plain English to say that I labelled it work than to say that I tagged it work.
Is this what a slow news day really looks like?
-stormin
Re:label makes more sense (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no web standard to use the term "tag" and label is more appropriate. And does it really matter either way?
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I think the perception of Google is changing from "everything Google does is smart, right and good" to a more balanced one. I think there's still a bit of a pro-Google bias out there, but it's slowly fading.
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For which I'm pretty sure the proper term is "element [w3.org]."
Re:label makes more sense (Score:5, Insightful)
-stormin
Re:label makes more sense (Score:4, Insightful)
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Well, since we were talking about this from the perspective of Google terminology for use in consumer apps (e.g. GMail) I thought the objective would clearly be to make it understandable to the masses. We're not talking about job security here, we're talking about convincing people to use GMail. This is marketing, not development. In other we don't care if it works, we care how it sounds.
-stormin
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A tag is a token -- a sequence of characters that tell the parser a new element is about to start or end.
An element is a logical unit composed of a start tag, and end tag, and optional PCDATA content. Or if the element doesn't take content, it can be expressed with an empty element tag.
When you talk about a tag, you're talking about markup. When you talk about an element, you're (hopefully) talking about semantic structure. Ne
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Also, standard desktop e-mail clients have had the facility for a while (longer than there has been such a concept as "web 2.0" for certain) and generally use the name "label" for that, too. Mozilla Thunderbird certainly does. So it would have been incompat
Does it really matter? (Score:3, Insightful)
You say (Score:2)
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Plain English (Score:2, Interesting)
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And even then it can only be removed by the consumer. Anyone else who does so risks doing so under penalty of law. ; )
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Hmm... not quite the same ring. I hope everything stays in alpha or beta just so I don't have to start matressing my links.
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Desktop email clients use term labels (Score:5, Informative)
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future patenting and copyright claims? (Score:2)
A bit like the "iPhone" fuss?
(sorry, not a lawyer so probably mixing up patenting and copyrighting, you know, something that people would think of as just a fun word in most places but will lead to somebody sueing somebody else for multiple trillions of dollars in the the USA
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Just because this is commonly mixed up, I figured I'd let you know that you're actually talking about trademarks, the third major kind of intellectual property (along with patents and copyright).
Patents are concerned with new and novel (at least, in theory) inventions and give the holder of the patent a monopoly over whatever was patented in exchange for telling the entire world how to make whatever it is.
Copyright is concerned with
Which sounds less evil? (Score:2, Interesting)
Graffiti... (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe google just think tagging sounds like graffiti-talk...
Tagged, I mean labelled "whocares" (Score:4, Insightful)
For Fucks Sake (Score:5, Funny)
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I hope people settle on "label" (Score:5, Insightful)
Slashdot tags (Score:5, Insightful)
Not "yes" by itself, but "yes, Yes, YEs YESSSSSS" (Score:5, Funny)
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(seriously, what kind of person uses "yes" as a search term?)
A positive one?
Labels vs. Tags (Score:2, Interesting)
Perhaps because... It really doesn't matter? (Score:5, Insightful)
Important term?
Puh-lease.
You have a bunch of websites, many of which call themselves the buzzword-2.0 of the week, that have implemented a feature that has zero standardization or between-site meaning. Most of these sites actually allow users to post comments, making one-word comments completely pointless. Though someone will probably point me to a counterexample, I have yet to see a site that lets you meaningfully search or filter by tags.
On that point, note the key word, "meaningfully". Check out Amazon's tags for the best I've seen yet, and it still sucks so hard that you have a dozen words all describing (almost) the same thing - "Almost", except that you'd have to check every single one of them to find the 1% that they don't overlap. Example: "green", "environment", "environmental", "conservation", "sustainability", and a handful of similar words all mean the same thing, yet point to slightly different lists; And on those lists, do you find environmentally-friendly products? No. You find nothing but books of pseudoscience written by and for zealots.
I'll worry about what to call these things if (not "when") they actually take on some usefulness. Until then, you can call them "snergs" for all I care.
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Agreed - I thought it obvious that I don't really feel that strongly against pro-conservation books, but I bear the full blame for that assumption (you know what they say about that word...).
Some of the books that come up really don't suck - I even own a few of them. But we won't save the world by reading, and I stand by my rant against the general uselessness of "tags".
For example, I noticed the Amazon tags for the first time after the most recent discussion of CFLs on Slas
The Difference Is Obvious (Score:5, Funny)
The 'label' is where the size and washing instructions are.
The 'tag' is where the price is.
Another good use for labels.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I have always organized my music in Genre - Artist - Album - song format, but I have found that too many songs would be multi-genre.
(ie. most modern Top40 songs today are also Rap/Dance/Hip-Hop)
So as a result my collection became mass-sorted into one of four major directories:
Rock/Alternative
Pop/Top 40/Rap/Hip Hop/Dance/Techno
Blues/R & B
Other
The ability to 'quickly find' a desired song became impossible.
Along came iTunes and it was awesome, but lacking.
Along came Amarok and it was better, but lacking.
Now Amarok has added a new feature called Labels, and I am in love (but it is still lacking).
Now I can ignore the Genre headache, and just use labels to identify what Genres of music that apply to the song.
This works only as long as I use Amarok for my music player. I am still SOL if i want to just browse the filesystem and grab a couple of songs on the spur of the moment.
What we need is a file system label structure that can/will apply to all files that we use.
Where to store Aunt Betty's cookie recipe? ~/docs/recipes ~/docs/aunt betty/ ~/docs/cookies
A bad solution is to create sym-links everywhere. A better solution would be to have labels appear as virtual directories.
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I've known various people who have th
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But finding music if I am in the mood for something fast and frantic for fragging in a FPS genre - artist can't be beat.
I can't/won't run itunes because I use Linux.
My sorting method worked fine in the mid-90's when I started because most of my collection was small, now that I have a HUGE collection, it's not so simple.
One of these days I'll just give-up the thought/effort of browsing my files manually and just use Amarok to play all m
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I may not be getting my initial point across though. Tags/labels only make it look like you're organized, nothing has really changed. You go from "one file in one folder" type of a setup (assuming no symlinks) to "one fi
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Because sometimes you're in the mood for
* ambient (working -- such as Liquid Mind / Enya) that isn't distracting
* rock or classical (gaming),
* pop love ballads (loving the wife)
etc.
--
"Q: Does the Windows filesystem suck? Indubitably".txt
And "keywords" are? (Score:2)
tag sounds cooler (Score:2)
It does actually annoy me when places use terms other than tags for tagging stuff; I'm just used to that term and the process that goes with it. However this is non-story as a story can get.
If it REALLY bothers you, write a greasemon
Keywords? (Score:2, Insightful)
Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
What you're missing (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is Google using inconsistent terminology in its products for such an important term?
Because it's not an important term.
tags? nihil novi (Score:2)
Heck, I see no difference between tags and keywords (except in coolness factor).
MPLS Tag Switching vs Label Switching (Score:2)
connotations of label vs tag (Score:2, Insightful)
Tags, labels and categories (Score:2)
Tags are a relatively new phenomenon as people discovered they can tag using tools like del.icio.us. But are tags, labels and directories the same thing? I've heard people say so, but I think ultimately "directories," or hierarchical categories, are most useful.
For example, the same word can mean different things in a different context (river: bank, or institution: bank, or even colour: black, lastname: black), and a larger number of tags is simply unwieldy. Better to have a browser interface. The best of w
Of course, back in the old days.. (Score:2)
The key difference... (Score:2)
Google uses Tags (Score:2)
reader.google.com (Score:2)
Of course! (Score:2)
labels = gmail
But to me it largely doesn't matter. The question is, WHY is Google wasting time on this branding stuff? Running dry on innovations? Hired the wrong marketing team?
Speculate. Now.
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To quote Shakespeare... (Score:2)
"What's in a name? A pedantic pundit, by any other name, would still stink like a fart in an abattoir."
...Okay, maybe I'm paraphrasing a little.
I don't care (Score:3, Insightful)
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Re:Distinctive features? (Score:5, Funny)
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Within six weeks of its release, the amount of spam will have increased by over an order of magnitude, because you no
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Its distinctive feature is the presumption that a collection of goofy, half-baked features that use irony to show the importance of privileged editors, is the manifest destiny of the R0x0r Intraweb.