What links were to Web 1.0 Tags are to Web 2.0 (Wikipedia article). Tagging is also a central component to Social Networking sites such as MySpace, FaceBook, Digg, and Last.FM. All of those sites are about social networking, but they serve different purposes and, likely, different audiences.
Since tagging is such an important part of the process it can become rather controversial. For example, ow do you tag your music? On Last.FM, which is a network based on music listening preferences it is significant and can be a source of contention. Consider the following reply I made in a forum on this matter.
Correct tagging explanation?evilangela said:
The thing is, correct tags are the only way to identify the artist and song you're playing. If your tags are incorrect, then you're missing out on what Last.fm could be giving you. With track tags it's not as big of a deal, but if you've got the artist tags wrong, then you're missing out on a lot.
I understand that much. The problem for me is understanding the underlying philosophy for tagging. For example, I have noticed that in instrumental classical music the artist field usually contains the name of the composer and not the orchestra, conductor, etc. The composer field seems to be ignored by last.FM. In vocal pieces, such as arias or duets, the singers tend to be lists in the artist field. For people who collect classical music it is not unusual to many different recordings of the same work. If only the composer is identified in the artist field it would seem to make it impossible to differentiate between recordings. It seems to me that using the artist field as a performers field and making use of the composer field for the actual author of the piece makes the most since IMHO ;-)jPeMelin said:
Occasionaly I got a reprimand for som minor error in my writing, but I respect such things and I have learned the style now, but I don't understand the rigid policy on the subject of ID-tags with argument already presented above. That's what I'm trying to get an understanding about.
Is there an explanation of this policy somewhere. Is is there some place where it is cleary detailed? I have taken the time to go through the bulk of my collection to replace the 'various artists' with the actual performers.
"Clean your tags" fascism! - General Discussion – Last.fm
Also, what is classical music? Most dynamic lists of tagged stream lists will include songs that have been tagged as “Classical Rock” or “Classical Country” in with music most people would consider classical. Don't get me started on how opera lists will include “metal” or “goth” opera in the mix. Streaming by tags can produce quite unexpected results.
