New article in my Web 2.0 series.
There are several different ways that folksonomies can serve a website. One common way is to organize a tag cloud of all the major links to your site - similar to a sitemap. Another way is to set up the folksonomy to reflect documents and files shared by site visitors or members, linking to the particular documents indicated by the word or phrase in the emerging tag cloud. Another use that is becoming quite popular is to reflect the contents of a cluster of text, or even a set of data. This has all kinds of promise for feedback and even qualitative research analysis. Just as the uses for a folksonomy vary, so do the way they appear. Some folksonomy tag clouds are very plain - they are barely discernable to regular texts except for a variance in text size or colour. Others are quite attractive looking, especially if organized with a graphic background for aesthetics quality. The way folksonomies are processed into tag clouds also varies - web designers can use tag cloud software or online tag cloud generators. Or, they can hand code their tag cloud in php or java to create a customized folksonomy tag cloud. READ ENTIRE ARTICLE AT: http://www.nursing-informatics.com/folksonomies.pdf