February 1st, 2007

Pew Study: 28% of Online Americans are Taggers

In a Tagging Report released just yesterday, this number from the Pew Internet and American Life Project is astounding.

28% of online folks have tagged content (U.S)

At first glance this number seems extremely high. Over 1/4 of online Americans have tagged content? This is way more than the single digit %s (or lower) that have been reported previously (Dave Weinberger reports seeing 0.5%).

However, there may be more merit to the number than it may seem.

The study asked people “Please tell me if you ever use the internet to categorize or tag online content like a photo, news story, or a blog post.” Now, Pew asked not just about the activity of tagging, but also the activity of categorization. That’s a big difference.

Categorization is something we’re all familiar with. We categorize things all the time: it’s a familiar term and activity. We’re used to categorizing things, both offline and online. It’s not a new activity. My guess is that if someone were to ask you about categorization the answer might be much different than if they asked you about tagging.

The funny thing is, that tagging is a special form of categorization by users. It’s nothing more. But it might be entirely possible to categorize things without tagging them, especially if the categories already exist. Alternatively, it is entirely possible to tag things without categorizing them.

To categorize means to place in a category. (it can also mean to create a new category and place in that). To tag means to apply a tag.

Take the site webshots.com, for example. For every picture you upload (or more specifically, every album) you have to place it in a category. This isn’t tagging, per se, because you’re not associating one of your own words with the picture. But you are associating one of the site’s categories with the picture. So that’s an example of categorization but not tagging. There is no tag here.

In addition, the study asked people about their behavior. This should always raise a red flag, because of a user’s inability to report accurately on their own behavior. This is a clear bias that exists, and affects every study done of this sort.

So right now I would take the number with a grain of salt. However, it does suggest a strong role for self-categorization, it’s just not clear what self-categorization means. Does it mean categorizing according to someone else categories? Or categorizing in a folksonomy using one’s own tags?

My guess is that the people answering the question didn’t sweat this distinction all that much.

So, what are your thoughts? Do you think that 28% of people are tagging?

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Comments ( 10 Responses so far )

1. Edward T. on February 1st, 2007 (Comment) #

My first reaction is that there is simply no way that 28% of the online community is tagging content in the way that you have been discussing it the past couple of days. But then I wonder about all those MySpace and Facebook users, all those WoW and SecondLife players, and I pause….

2. Ancestor on February 1st, 2007 (Comment) #

And who did they survey? - The results would be very differant (I imagine) if you surveyed high school kids VS the nice gentlemen and ladies at my mom’s senior center ..

3. Jay Fienberg on February 1st, 2007 (Comment) #

The funny thing is, that tagging is a special form of categorization by users. It’s nothing more.

Tagging can be something “less” as well: tagging also can be a special form of naming by users. And, tagging also can be a special form of describing by users.

Many free tagging systems present users with three entry fields in a row:

title:
description:
keywords:

And, the keywords / tags often end up being a variant of either the title, the description, or both. In these cases, the tags are less like categories and more like names.

On the other hand, people specifically categorize things through naming and description as well, e.g., sometimes people think that using category labels in titles and/or descriptions is a form of categorization.

For example, when someone puts an ad on craigslist and titles the ad: “free guitar available in Seattle,” they explicitly may assume that people are searching for “categories” like: free, guitar, seattle (or some combination like “free guitar,” etc.).

4. Josh on February 1st, 2007 (Comment) #

Excellent point, Jay. Tags can be anything, and are only sometimes categories.

5. Johan on February 1st, 2007 (Comment) #

I wonder that the rise of blogging and social bookmarking/tagging services explain the high number in this survey. People on the Internet use a specific jargon, and the increase of tagging services could explain the increased familiarity with words like tagging.

The way I see it people use first tags (keywords) to search for content on Google, and bookmarked a whole page for later (re-)use. But people use more ways to tag content these days hence when you would do a survey “people could mistake tagging for all these actions (bookmarking, searching, tagging on flickr, etc. …)

I do believe tagging is part of a folksonomy, and categories are still more like partial to taxonomies. Though the whole action of tagging content are actions similar to categorising stuff as well (as indicated by Jay!). But I believe there is a small difference in context.
Tags need to be in a mostly plural from and describe the content eg. river water boat, and categories (are more higher in the hierarchy) eg boating, marine.

Just my idea …

when using good tags that are concise

6. Daniel Szuc on February 2nd, 2007 (Comment) #

“To categorize means to place in a category. (it can also mean to create a new category and place in that). To tag means to apply a tag.”

Suspect a part of this is also about “contribution” - there is a nice warm and fuzzy feeling to write, tag, upload or email something. You feel part of something.

Tagging is another piece of this puzzle.

What other functions make a person feel like they are contributing? AND What is the positive result of this? What will we see in the future?

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7. Kin Lane on February 14th, 2007 (Comment) #

I find that even most fairly tech savvy users may know what tagging is, but do not actively participate.

I doubt that most people truly understand tagging even though they say they know what it is. They recognize the word. Not necessarily the meaning.

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Pew Study: 28% of Online Americans are Taggers

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