I mostly agree with Darren Barefoot that Technorati Tags are a Lousy Kludge, being no substitute for that almost mythical context-sensitive search we’ve been waiting for so long. Tags are too reminiscent of the old META KEYWORD element, which was used, abused, then abandoned for having become utterly worthless.

That said, there is at least one way in which tags are useful in my opinion, and that is for enabling localized ad hoc categorization, as opposed to defining and maintaining a taxonomy of all things. I am considering replacing the category system recently implemented on my own blog with a more laissez-faire system using tags, just for my own use. This way there would be no risk of abuse, since it would be only my blog indexing my tags.

Of course I could simply implement a category-on-demand feature– so that each entry names as many categories as seems appropriate, with any that don’t already exist being created automatically. Such a system would be close to what I want, but still I think the tag philosophy has an advantage in that a tag cannot exist without at least one entry to use it, so tags aren’t just created on demand, they exist on demand– it’s a small distinction, but for people like me who tend to get stuck in a loop deciding which box to put things in I think it’s kind of liberating.

NB: I wrote this entry a few days ago then forgot to post it– I see now that a lot of this stuff is already covered in the comments on the original article. Note also that the idea that anyone wouldn’t recognize the origin of the phrase “purple monkey dishwasher” is making me feel old…