Vik Singh has an interesting blog post on the future of tagging. IMO not so much because of the idea, since it looks quite familiar to the directory structure we're all familiar with, adding the possibility for objects to be inside several directories at the same time. But it got me thinking on what tagging lacks, which is an easy to use relation to more structured data about what the tag means.

Anyone who's used the del.icio.us tagging interface provided by their bookmarklets (Update: sorry, the link is dead) or Firefox extension (Update: sorry, the link is dead) knows how easy they are to use. Just click any tag, and it's added or removed, based on whether it's already used. Click the "save" button when done. Dead easy.

Creating RDF, when compared with del.icio.us, is quantum theory. But it's already being used, and will probably be one of the biggest players in the semantic web, where things have meanings which can be interpreted by computers. Using RDF, you can distinguish between the tag "read" as an imperative (read it!) and an assertation (has been read). You can also make the computer understand that "examples" is the plural of "example", and that curling is a sport (though some may disagree :)).

How could we combine the two? Here's an idea: When clicking any of the tags in the del.icio.us tagging interface, you'll be asked what you mean, by getting the possibility to select any number of from a list of one-sentence meanings. E.g., when selecting "work", you could get these choices:

  • Item on my todo list
  • Something you've worked on
  • Something somebody else has worked on
  • A job/position
  • None of the above
  • Show all meanings
  • Define new meaning...

The list would normally only contain the most popular definitions, to harness the power of the "best" meanings, as defined by the number of users. The "Show all meanings" link could be used to show the whole range of meanings people have defined.

"Define new meaning..." could give you a nice interface to define the meaning of the word in the context of the link you're tagging at the moment. This is where the designers really have to get their minds cooking to get something usable by at least mid-range computer literates.